


Carry On, Carry On

by KeepingTheStarsApart



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adoptive family, Alternate Universe - Family, Canon-Typical Violence, Everyone lives/Nobody dies, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I'm not good at this tagging thing, Kid Fic, M/M, Minor Vernon Boyd/Cora Hale, Siblings, but it's not that bad, i think, kind of, slowburn sterek
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-10-07 07:47:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10355574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeepingTheStarsApart/pseuds/KeepingTheStarsApart
Summary: So here they are now.Three adults against nine children. One Sheriff, one Banshee and one Stiles against six werewolves, one kitsune, one werecoyote and a huntress.His mum would have loved this.She would have loved the full house and the inevitable teamwork, the bonding and thetremendous chaosthat is driving Stiles round the bend.~Or, the one where everyone was adopted into the Stilinski family because of reasons, and now Stiles has to deal with a crazy werewolf family of his own, to many things that go bump in the night to keep track of, and Derek, who just can't seem to learn how to deal with his emotions.Also, chocolate cake, because Stiles needs at least one positive thing to focus on, thanks very much.





	1. Well I Woke Up To The Sound of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, I can't deal with all the people dying or leaving on the show, so I'm making them into a big happy family because I can :)
> 
> This is mostly the same setting/universe as Teen Wolf (which I don't own etc. etc.) but most of the characters backstories and ages are changed and the storyline ignores just about everything that ever happened on the show.  
> Most of the Hale family still died in the fire and I'm just going to pretend Peter doesn't exist.
> 
> Also, English is not my first language, so please let me know if you find any mistakes, because this is entirely unbeta'ed.
> 
> Title and chapter title from Fun.'s Carry On (as will be all the other chapter titles).

Stiles wakes up to a soft hand patting the side of his face that isn’t smushed into his pillow. 

He blinks open one eye to catch a glimpse at his alarm clock, and, wow. 6:13 in the morning is really fucking early, Stiles thinks, even for a regular, you-are-doomed-to-be-tired-all-day Monday. 

“Wasgoinon,” he rasps groggily, simultaneously remembering that it’s his birthday today. 

That in turn makes him wonder why he’s woken up to only Lydia’s dainty figure, instead of being crushed beneath the weight of his entire family. Stiles is not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. 

“We made a deal last year, remember?” Lydia speaks up once she deems him awake enough to follow. 

Stiles is in fact not following. At all. 

“Huh?” he inquires dumbly. 

Eloquence is just not a thing this early in the morning, alright?

Lydia rolls her eyes and lays it down for him. 

“On your last birthday, you made me promise that this year I’d wake you up before the mob could give you another heart attack. You’ve got about,” she checks her wristwatch, “…two minutes before everyone comes barging in, so,” she waves a hand at him, “pretend to be asleep or you’ll spoil their fun.”

“Huh,” Stiles agrees, eyelids already starting to droop again. Lydia snorts, but bends down to kiss his forehead, long red hair brushing over his face.

“Happy birthday, babes,” she tell him and slips out of the room before Stiles can even mumble his thanks.

~

True to Lydia’s words, Stiles’ finds himself half-surrounded by and half-buried beneath all of his siblings only a few minutes later. At least, this year he was prepared. Not like one year ago, when he’d woken up screaming and flailing, because _oh my god what is happening why is he being crushed who broke into the house_ , and ended up pushing several kids off of his bed.

So yeah, definitely an improvement to his 17th birthday. Also because there is cake. An honest to god _homemade_ chocolate fudge cake with clotted cream on top; Stiles could cry.

“Ohhh my goddd,” Stiles groans delightedly at the possibly-diabetes-inducing monstrosity, which is being presented to him by both Erica and Isaac, because apparently it’s too heavy to be carried by only _one_ pair of ten-year-old arms. Stiles is going to die a sugary death.

“Can I have a slice? Pleeeease?” Scott begs as soon as Stiles has blown out all eighteen mismatched candles on his cake in one go, accompanied by the cheers of his younger siblings.

“Not yet, sweetie,” Lydia says, “It’s too early for cake. Everyone can have a slice after school. But,” she continues when Scott immediately whips out the puppy eyes, lifting the nine-year-old up under his armpits and dumping him on top of Stiles, “you can all give Stiles your presents now.”

“Awesome,” Stiles agrees with a grin, scooting backwards on his bed until he can sit up against the headboard. 

Scott cuddles up in his lap, always a bit clingier in the morning. Stiles would lie if he said he didn’t enjoy it a little bit. Hugging Scotty is like hugging pure sunshine. Metaphorically speaking, of course, Stiles considers the real deal a little dangerous for his pale skin.

“Boyd made the cake,” Lydia informs Stiles, nudging the teenager next to her.

“Obviously,” Stiles says, “I can’t wait to eat that, man, it looks amazing.”

“We helped!” Erica calls, gingerly placing the cake on Stiles’ desk with Isaac, both the twins’ arms staring to get weak from holding it so long. They bound back across the room and settle at the foot of the bed on either side of Allison. The twelve-year-old sits cross-legged on top of the duvet and shoots a dimpling smile at Stiles. To his left, pressed close to the side of the bed, Malia starts growling a little, until Stiles lifts his arm to allow the girl to squeeze onto the bed right next to him. 

“Boyd made you something else,” Kira faux-whispers and hip-checks said boy on her way to the bed. She has four-year-old Liam in her arms and carefully sits him down on Stiles’ other side. “He’s just too shy to give it you.”

“Am not,” Boyd says mildly and trusts out a thin, square, neatly-wrapped parcel. 

At 15 and 16 years respectively, Kira and Boyd clash exceptionally rarely, unlike the rest of them. Stiles just smiles and accepts the present, aware of how Boyd doesn’t really like being in the center of attention. He proceeds to peel of the gift wrap and fish-mouths at the revealed item. It’s a framed painting, charcoal and aquarelle, as far as Stiles can tell, and shows the artistically drawn head of a wolf.

“This is beautiful,” Stiles whispers after several beats of silence.

“I know, right?” Lydia gushes, not able to stop herself, “but we had to persuade him to even give it to you, he thinks it’s “mediocre”.” She scoffs as though personally insulted. 

“Mate,” Stiles says earnestly, “Boyd. It’s perfect, I can’t believe _you made that_. Thanks, bro. Really.”

Boyd smiles (honestly smiles, with teeth and all, which is nearly as great as the present itself) and then steps back to allow everyone else their turn.

Allison gives him the newest Marvel movie on DVD, Kira a burgundy-colored hoodie. From Erica and Isaac he gets a set of self-made bracelets and a very glittery card. He also ends up with an impressive stack of crayon pictures, courtesy of Scott, Malia and finally Liam.

“Aw, this is so pretty, babywolf,” Stiles praises enthusiastically, squinting at several stick figures over the top of the youngest boy’s head. “Now let’s see, who’ve we got here…?”

“This is you,” Liam explains seriously, points at the middle figure and proceeds to clumsily identify each stick figure with a member of their family. By the time he’s finished, Stiles is both enlightened and touched, but also fairly aware of the time. It is a school day, after all.

“Awesome,” he exclaims, “Thanks a lot guys, you’ve really outdone yourselves this year!” He looks at Lydia. “I kinda lost overview, to be honest, but if that was everyone we should probably go downstairs and figure out breakfast-“

“Breakfast is ready and waiting,” Lydia interrupts reassuringly, “but that sure wasn’t everyone.” 

She reaches behind Boyd’s broad form and grabs one remaining and conspicuously quiet preteen by the back of his t-shirt. Jackson grumbles in protest but it doesn’t do much to shake her off.

“Ally, Boyd, come on,” Kira pipes up loudly, “let’s get everybody down for breakfast, or we’re all gonna be late for school by the time Stiles makes it out of bed.”

“Oi!” Stiles calls out good-naturedly, but doesn’t protest when the three of them pluck several kids off his bed and out of his arms, and usher them out of the room. Lydia, Stiles and Jackson are the only ones remaining.

“Go on,” Lydia says, dragging the thirteen-year-old closer as Stiles finally swings his legs out of bed. 

“Morning, grumpy-face,” Stiles says and grins up at the boy. Jackson harrumphs and trusts a box wrapped in newspaper at him.

“Happy Birthday, asshat.”

“Language!” Lydia chides and cuffs him gently over the back of the head. Stiles is painfully aware that Lydia is the only person, probably on the whole planet, that can keep the menace that is Jackson under control. He has yet to figure out what her secret is.  
Sorcery, probably.

“Sorry about yesterday,” Jackson mumbles then, eyes fixed on the bandage on Stiles’ upper left arm that hides several long scratches. “I lost control.”

Stiles’ eyes widen in surprise. 

“I know,” he says after a beat, starting to tear at the newspaper, “It wasn’t your fault. These things happen in a house full of claw-y people, I’m not mad.”

Jackson nods and looks everywhere but at Stiles as the older boy rips off layers of the “Beacon Hills Times” and ends up with a shoebox. Which contains, more or less surprisingly, a pair of shoes.

“Are these- Are you giving me my _own_ chucks? I’ve been looking for these, what-“

“He fixed them,” Lydia supplies helpfully and wraps her arms around Jackson from behind, propping her chin on his head.

The kid scoffs and starts to blush once Stiles catches on and lifts one shoe up to examine it with his mouth hanging open. His favorite ratty old chucks might still look fairly ratty, but all the holes are gone and there are new laces and the color is mostly back to the original white.  
Stiles is stunned.

“How _on earth_ did you do that?”

Jackson shrugs. “YouTube tutorials.”

“He came up with the idea himself,” Lydia chirps conspiratorially, “He spent hours on them. Isn’t he sweet?”

She shoots Stiles a _look_ that makes him jump into action.

“So sweet,” he agrees to Jackson’s obvious horror. “They look great, buddy, thank you!”  
With an almost predatory grin, Stiles puts the box and shoes aside.

“Come here!”

"Nooo,” Jackson whines immediately, fruitlessly trying to flee, but Lydia pushes him forward.

Stiles gets on his feet and engulfs Jackson in a bear hug, smushing the younger boy’s face into his chest. Jackson huffs and puffs before going limp in the embrace, trying his best to seem unbothered while Stiles peppers the top of his head with kisses.

“Let me go,” he grumbles, “They’re just shoes, can you stop being so embarrassing?”

“Where would be the fun in that?” Stiles questions, and Lydia laughs along with him.

“Come on, let the poor boy go,” she chuckles, “You’re shattering his pride.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Stiles relents, still grinning, but in the very last moment before he lets go, Jackson throws his arm around his ribcage, squeezes tightly for two seconds, then scurries out of the room at top speed. Lydia and Stiles are left shaking their heads fondly.

“That boy,” Stiles says, “is going to give us so much trouble."

“And his puberty has only just started,” Lydia agrees but seems mostly unperturbed by this. Well, it’s not her Jackson uses as a scratching post, Stiles figures. But if truth be told, he can’t really stop riling up Jackson either; it’s just too much fun. Maybe his dad is right and he is in fact rather eight than eighteen, mentally speaking.

“Here,” Lydia speaks up then, grabbing something leaning against the doorframe. “That leaves me.”

Stiles accepts the longish parcel with a frown.

“I thought we agreed that we wouldn’t give each other anything this year!”

“This was necessary,” Lydia waves him off, “Also, you gave me a new dress for my birthday, so quit complaining and open you’re present.”

“Because your favorite one got ripped apart by that harpy,” he mumbles under his breath, but he recognizes his defeat and complies, bringing a brand new baseball bat to light.

“Since your last one shattered over that troll’s head,” Lydia offers lightly. “This one is made from aluminum, still very light and easy to handle, but less likely to break into a million pieces.”

“Thanks,” Stiles exclaims excitedly, “Really, it’s perfect. You’re brilliant.” He pulls Lydia close in a one-armed hug. “Now tell me, how does it feel not to be the oldest anymore, huh?”

“Sweetheart, just because we’re both eighteen now doesn’t mean I’m not still older than you.”

“Only by three weeks,” Stiles grumbles, but grins at his sister nonetheless. “Twins should be the same age. Feels better.”

“We’re not twins,” Lydia says exasperatedly, but she can’t really hide the smile tugging at her lips.

“Yes we are. As good as.”

“… Yeah, as good as.”

~ 

The kitchen has apparently decided to rudely ignore Stiles’ birthday and is as chaotic as any other day.  
Half of yesterday’s dishes are still in the sink, because nobody could be arsed to do them. To get from one end of the kitchen you have to push your way through half a dozen, more or less awake kids and teenagers, and the general morning chatter is principally joined by the ancient radio above the stove. The volume control of said radio has been broken for years now, which is why the music is always just a fraction too loud, but no one has the heart to throw it out because it belonged to Stiles’ mum. Stiles has always had a soft spot for the tinny sound of it, anyways.

“There’s scrambled egg on the stove,” Allison informs him from where she sits at the table and makes a PB&J for Scott, who is impatiently waiting next to her.

Stiles nods in acknowledgement. “Thanks,” he says, grabs a fork and a piece of toast and starts to eat right out of the oversized pan. Lydia sends an admonishing look his way, but is thankfully too occupied with braiding Erica’s hair by the fridge to do anything about it.

“Guys, has _anybody _seen my textbook?!” Kira calls out, rushing in from the living room with only one arm in her shirt. “History textbook? Anyone?”__

“Uh, I think Malia might’ve used it as a pad to draw on yesterday…” Lydia muses, without taking her eyes of Erica’s blonde locks. That girl is always on top of everything and Stiles finds it enviable.

“If she’s torn it apart I’m gonna break something,” Kira panics and rushes back out.

“What about breakfast?” Stills shouts after her but gets no response. 

“Jackson!” Allison shrieks instead, a scandalized look on her face as she watches Jackson take a huge bite out of the sandwich she was so meticulously preparing. “That’s Scott’s!”

The teen opens his mouth to deliver what was surely supposed to be a rude comeback, but Lydia catches his eye across the room. All she has to do -literally _all she has to do_ \- is raise one perfectly-groomed eyebrow, and Jackson drops the sandwich back down onto Allison’s plate.

“Why, thank you,” the girl says sarcastically and sighs when Scott immediately makes grabby hands for the food. Jackson waits until Lydia turns her back to pull a face at Allison, who sticks her tongue out in return.

It doesn’t take much these days to set the two kids off against each other. Stiles watches with narrowed eyes, but thankfully it doesn’t escalate into anything worse than grimaces.

“Alright,” he says instead, shoving the rest of his toast into his mouth and passing the pan to Boyd. The clock above the door shows two minutes to seven.

“We’ve got twenty-two minutes; everybody who’s still in their pajamas, come with me!” he all but screams above the noise.

Erica and Isaac hurry to put their plates in the sink, dodging around Boyd who is calmly eating his eggs by the stove. Lydia, by now perched next to Liam’s high chair that they still haven’t gotten rid of, is watching the youngest boy eating cornflakes with eagle eyes.

“Don’t forget Malia.”

“Where’s she?” Stiles asks, glancing around as he gulps down a glass of OJ.

Lydia points.  
Lydia points at the kitchen table, in fact, and Stiles is momentarily confused, until Boyd stick out his foot, lifting he tablecloth with the tip of it. At once, a low growl sets in.

“Aha,” Stiles goes loudly, crouching down to peek under the table.

He’s met with a sight to behold: Malia, tiny for her six years, sits cross-legged on the floor between four pairs of legs and munches on a bagel, entirely unperturbed by the feet around her. (Even though Scott is dangling his around with no coordination at all and hits Malia’s shoulder every so often.)

“Hey there, cutie,” Stiles chuckles, “Wanna come out so we can both get dressed?”

Malia considers this for a moment, stuffs the rest of the bagel into her mouth and nods.

“Cool,” Stiles says and holds his arms out. Malia darts out from under the table at top speed and topples both of them over as she collides with Stiles.

“Oh god,” he groans, lying flat on his back, “We’ve gone down, oh god.”

“Stiles,” Erica giggles, coming to stand above them, “Stiles, we’ll be late if you don’t hurry up.”

“Right you are, pretty,” Stiles agrees quickly, heaving both himself and Malia up of the floor. “Lydia-“

“I’ve got the boys,” the redhead assures calmly. “You guys go get dressed.”

“Cool,” Stiles repeats, already groaning under Malia’s weight. “You’re starting to get a little heavy, there,” he tells her jokingly and gets a growl for it.  
Malia obviously doesn’t budge, but chooses to contently dangle from Stiles’ shoulder. It can’t be all that comfortable, but Stiles has long since accepted that his youngest sister is one of a kind; her actions are not to be questioned. He leaves her hanging, quite literally, and shoos the twins up the stairs with his remaining arm.

“It’s not exactly warm today, so if you wanna wear a dress, Erica, only with thighs,” Stiles calls after her and Isaac as they disappear into their shared room. “Be ready in five!”/p>

He wanders into the kids’ room that Malia shares with Scott and Liam, and drops the girl onto her bed.

“Whatcha wanna wear today, love?”

“Dun-ga-reeees,” Malia says slowly, blinking up at Stiles with wide eyes.

He grins, because it’s her first word today and it’s before nine a.m. Which may sound weird, but Malia isn’t very big on talking, especially not in the early morning. She’s also not big on school, trust, or people in general.  
Anyway, Malia likes to resort to growling only, so it’s progress.

Stiles gets the clothing as per request and helps his sister fasten the clasps on her tiny jeans-overall.

“Ready to go? Awesome, go wait downstairs with Lyds, okay?”

Malia nods and runs off.  
Stiles, who is still in his pajamas, makes a quick detour into the bathroom. A few minutes later, walking back to his own room, he promptly runs into Erica, who is waiting patiently by his door.

“What’s up with you, pretty?” Stiles asks her, shouldering his door open backwards to keep is eyes of the blonde./p>

“Can you button it up, please?” She asks sweetly, turning around to show off the open backside of her pink dress.

“Sure, come here,” Stiles agrees distractedly, sitting down on Lydia’s bed instead of his own by accident. “Why didn’t you ask Isaac to help you? He hasn’t locked himself into the bathroom again, has he?”

“No, he went back down to find Scott,” Erica grouches and Stiles can practically hear the roll of her eyes, even though she’s standing with her back to him. “Also, he doesn’t like to do my buttons, he’s too impatient.”

“There _are_ a lot of buttons on this one,” Stiles amends, but Erica only hums noncommittally. “You’d better hurry,” she tells Stiles, turning around after he finally managed to fumble the top button close, “You’re own deadline is in three minutes.”

With that, she dances out of the room, dress all proper, and leaves Stiles sitting on the bed quite dumbly. And he’s _still_ in his pajamas, goddammit. He opens his (remarkably smaller) side of the wardrobe and looks for something clean to wear.

In the end, Stiles really only has his father to blame for his situation. These days, he generally blames everything on his father (not in a particularly angry way, just out of spite, really), because if Stiles’ social life doesn’t fall victim to his own poor sense of self-preservation and/or his sarcasm, it falls victim to his family. All the time, really. And said family is entirely his dad’s fault – well, not in the biblical sense, more in a let’s-adopt-a-bunch-of-supernatural-kids-because-we’re-such-good-people sense.  
Stiles obviously wasn’t consulted.

It all started with Lydia, who was at that time two years old, baby-Stiles’ best daycare friend and watched her parents die in an armed bank robbery. Sheriff Stilinski and his wife ended up adopting Lydia, and her and Stiles grew up being as-good-as twins. Which would have been fine and great all around, because Stiles would be absolutely lost without the awesome and hyper-intelligent goddess that is his sister.  
And that’s what it _was_ for nearly eight years. Sheriff Stilinski, his wife Claudia, Lydia and Stiles, living happily ever after. A likely story.

But then they found a very bloody, very dead body in the woods, right on top of a gigantic tree stump, and to say that there were consequences would be an understatement.  
The Stilinski family lived in blissful oblivion one more month, until what they would later found out to be werewolves (honest to god, furry, howling-at-the-moon werewolves, Stiles remembers thinking it was the coolest thing ever, ha) massacred a family and left nothing behind except for a recently bitten infant. Also known as Scott.

Another year later, Sheriff Stilinski and his department rescued a twin pair of werewolf-toddlers from their abusive father and took them in as well. Stiles knows that his mother had already been aware of her fatal illness at that time, but she’d always felt that family was a privilege and they were lucky enough to have it.  
(It just so happens that, while Beacon Hills would otherwise be a thoroughly ordinary and boring Californian small town, any and all committed crimes are largely related to the supernatural world – and therefore, so are all the orphans. Stiles feels like this should have been an more important part of the equation – not because he has prejudices, god no, it’s just that it’s _his_ 146 pounds of pale skin and fragile bones that have to deal with the wolfy consequences.)

“It’s what she would have wanted,” the Sheriff had told Stiles and Lydia, shortly before they adopted Allison and Jackson into their ever-growing family and only months after Claudia Stilinski’s death. Stiles can still hear his gruff voice, weighted down with grief and, that specific night, a little too much Whiskey.

“It’s what your mum would’ve wanted, she’d’ve wanted us to help. They’re just kids, they’re just kids and they deserve a family and we can be that family. That’s what she used to say.”

And from thereon it just went blow after blow. Or kid after kid. Allison and Jackson were soon followed by Boyd, Liam and Kira, albeit one at a time. In between Scott and Malia (whose family died in a werecoyote-induced car crash two years ago), they had a very steady quote of 1.25 kids per year, Stiles reckons. A quote that brought them to be Beacon Hills unofficial, number-one orphanage of the supernatural kind.

So here are they now. Three adults (as of today) against nine children. One Sheriff, one Banshee and one Stiles against six werewolves, one kitsune, one werecoyote and a huntress.  
His mum would have loved this. She would have loved the full house and the inevitable teamwork, the bonding and the _tremendous chaos_ that is driving Stiles round the bend.  
She’d’ve loved all of it, Stiles is sure.

“Just think about what you’d do without Lydia, yeah, sweetie?” she had said one night, years and years ago, lightly brushing over Stiles’ head and looking over to Lydia’s sleeping form, curled up in chair by the hospital bed. “You’d miss her, don’t you think? Maybe one day you’ll feel the same about the others. I know you’re a great big brother, baby. Always remember that it’s the right thing to do. Remember that for me. And besides, what could go wrong?”

What could go wrong?

Stiles considers that a rhetorical question, really, because the last ten years have given him enough material to fill an entire book with everything that could possibly go wrong. Mostly because everything that _could_ go wrong, _has_ gone wrong.  
Also because after all the things Stiles has seen in his short life, he sports a general nothing-is-impossible attitude, which mixes greatly with his creativity. So if a three-headed, gigantic snake with wings and poisonous fangs should ever happen to cross his path, Stiles is prepared. At least mentally, he’s still having how-do-I-fight-it problems with everything that can fly, since Stiles himself might be far from defenseless, but he’s also decidedly wing-less.  
Anyway, as long as the newest catastrophe doesn’t involve flying or mind meddling (also not really Stiles’ thing), he’s good. Especially now that he’s got a new bat.

“Stiles!” Lydia suddenly calls up the stairs, pulling him out of his thoughts. He grabs a Hoodie and his schoolbag and hurries into the hallway.

“Sorry, sorry, I’m coming,” he calls, cursing himself when he catches sight of the clock on the wall. 

7:25, they’re official late and Stiles will have to speed if he wants to get everyone to school on time and he’ll definitely have to try not to get caught by his dad or one of his deputies doing so. (Again.) Stiles sprints down the stairs in an uncoordinated flail of limbs. At the bottom, all ten of his siblings are crowded around the front door, looking up at him in expectation.  
Liam toddles over to be picked up, Jackson sticks his tongue out for no apparent reason and Lydia smiles at him. She holds out his car keys.

“Come on, birthday boy, we’ve got places to be.”

So yeah.  
Stiles is good.

+++

At school, everyone is a little less nice to Stiles, to say the least.  
He doesn’t share a single class with Lydia on Mondays, so he doesn’t even have his sister for comfort as Harris, who obviously doesn’t give a flying fuck that it’s Stiles’ birthday, spends a whole five minutes ranting about Stiles’ inability to keep his hands off the Bunsen burner.

“Next time, I’ll just let you go ahead and burn your eyebrows off, Stilinski. At least I’d have something to laugh at, then,” Harris finishes with and consequently manages to destroy most of Stiles’ good mood.  
Next to him, Danny clicks his tongue.

“I dunno, man,” he says quietly, once the teacher has finally turned his back on them, “I think Harris would rock the whole eyebrow-less style way better than you.”

Stiles snorts, promptly receiving another nasty look from Harris. He smiles at Danny though, because Danny is awesome and generally too nice for this world, and Stiles appreciates the effort.

~

Later, they join Heather and Sydney at lunch, all four of their trays filled with mostly unidentifiable food.

“I think this was supposed to be mac and cheese,” Sydney says faintly, poking at it with her plastic fork.

Stiles gags a little and tries to think of Boyd’s heavenly chocolate cake that’s waiting for him at home.

“And I always thought you can’t screw up mac and cheese,” Heather deadpans, listlessly poking around in her plate. Then she pushes it away decidedly and digs into her salad instead. Stiles can absolutely relate.

“I think you can’t screw it up if you use real _cheese,_ ” Danny contributes with a shrug and takes a bite out of his homemade sandwich with gusto. Which is _not_ something Stiles can relate to as he braves a spoonful of disgusting cafeteria food.

“I don’t think these are real noodles either,” he says feebly and jumps when somebody new suddenly drops into the chair next to him.

“After three and a half years, shouldn’t you have learned not to touch the Monday mac and cheese?”

“Hope dies last,” Stiles says loftily, “Hi, Cora, to what do I owe the displeasure?”

Cora grins wolfishly. “I’m just here to wish you a happy birthday, asshole.”

“Aww, that’s so sweet of you, pumpkin,” Stiles simpers sarcastically, “And what’s the real reason?”

Cora rolls her eyes good-naturedly. “Boyd ditched me to go train in the gym or some shit and since you’re the only other person in this entire room that I talk to, you’ve just won yourself fifteen minutes of my precious presence,” she informs him and now it’s Stiles’ turn to roll his eyes.  
He’ll never understand how so much sass can fit into a sixteen-year-old girl.

Then again, he’s met Laura, so maybe it runs in the family.

“Boyd would never ditch you, you drama queen,” he says, “He’s way too smitten with you. Dunno why, though, you’re a pain in the ass.”

“Right back at you,” Cora snarks, but she can’t really hide the faint blush that’s creeping up her cheeks.

“Thanks,” Stiles nods solemnly, deems this conversation as finished and proceeds to gulp down the repulsive pasta (he manages a quarter until he starts to feel nauseated). Cora just sits with him in companionable silence until his class mates have rushed off towards the library, the gym and their significant other respectively. The she slides over her own huge lunch box. 

Stiles stares at it.

“It’s leftover pizza,” Cora informs him nonchalantly, “Derek’s made it.”

“You’re offering me your food,” he says flatly.

“It’s too much for one person anyway,” she shrugs, but Stiles buys none of it.

“You’re literally a predator. You can eat for five, I know it and I’ve seen it. You’re sharing your food with me because you _like_ me!” Stiles gushes, delighted.

“Alright, I’m taking this back,” Cora says coolly and makes to grab the container.

“No, no,” Stiles, laughs, blocking her off, “it’s true! You even waited ‘til my friends were gone so no one would know you actually have a heart! Oh, this is golden.”

Cora narrows her eyes at him and Stiles knows enough female werewolves to recognize the impending danger, but this is too good to let go. Makes for high-class blackmail material, Stiles thinks gleefully, grin wide as he bites into a slice of cold pizza and chews obnoxiously in Cora’s direction.

“Oh, please,” she scoffs, but her eyes soften ever so slightly. “I don’t like you. I pity you.”

“Weak,” Stiles comments dismissively, “You can do better than that.”

Cora doesn’t answer at once, but waits until Stiles has finished his slice.

“Tastes good?” she asks innocently, which is wrong by nature.

“God, yes,” he answers nonetheless, because even cold, this pizza is practically divine. “You’ve saved me from death through starvation.” 

“I should hope so,” Cora smiles dangerously, “Derek would skin me alive if I’d left his favorite little human to die from food poisoning.”

Stiles splutters. “Wha- I’m not Derek’s little human, or Derek’s favorite- I’m not Derek’s anything, actually, why are we talking about Derek?”

Smooth, Stilinski. Very smooth.

Cora seems to think along the same lines. She raises a single eyebrow and stars him down until Stiles can feel the color raising on the back of his neck and starts to squirm. He’s only slightly pathetic.

“Sure,” Cora says deliberately, “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go see if Boyd needs some help.”

“Oh, yeah,” Stiles calls after her. His dignity is pretty much shattered here, nothing left to save, but that doesn’t mean he can’t bring Cora down with him. “You go see if your _boyfriend_ needs some help showing off his ridiculous muscles!”

She doesn’t even turn around on her way to the door.  
“Don’t let _your_ boyfriend hear that, honey,” she calls over shoulder though, and she is the fucking worst.

“You suck!” he shouts, but Cora is gone and all it gets him is a bunch of Freshmen staring at him indignantly.

“And he’s not my boyfriend!”

~

Hours later, when Stiles leaves the school at 15:30, Derek Hale is leaning against his jeep in the parking lot. Because of course he is. Stiles just can’t catch a break, can he?

How is this his life?

Unfortunately it’s a little too late for a calculated retreat, Derek has already spotted him amongst the students spilling out of the building after the last period. So, Stiles puts on his brave face and a whole lot of confidence that he doesn’t have, and wanders over to Derek.

“Derek, my man,” Stiles says loudly, “What brings you here on this delightful afternoon?”

Oh bollocks.  
If he gets any more awkward today, he might as well start digging a hole into the ground to swallow him.

Derek cocks an unimpressed eyebrow (another thing that definitely runs in the Hale family) and unceremoniously thrusts a plastic container at him.

Stiles blinks.

It’s a maximum-sized pack of strawberry-flavored Twizzlers, the biggest pack available in stores. After the first moment of total confusion, Stiles’ stomach does a little swoop. Derek Hale just gave him his favorite sweets. On his _birthday-_

“Laura sends her best wishes,” Derek says, interrupting Stiles admittedly not very manly inner monologue.

Laura-?

Of course. The present is from Laura, who is the Alpha of the Hale pack and also the only Hale that _openly_ likes him. Stiles is so pathetic, it’s not even funny anymore. Why, why on earth would Derek Hale, stoic grumpiness personified, give him a box of strawberry Twizzlers, god-fucking-dammit.

“Why is Laura giving me Twizzlers?” Stiles says, going for nonchalance.

“Because it’s your birthday,” Derek says and Stiles gives him a _duh_ kind of look.

“And why is she sending _you_ to give them to me?”

“Because she’s in Oregon meeting with Satomi and her pack.”

“Is that the scary old Japanese lady who originally was going to take Kira in?” Stiles wonders, idly popping the lid of his box and pulling out a red-colored piece of heaven. 

Derek audibly clears his throat as he starts to suck on the Twizzler.

“That’s the one,” he says, a little hoarse. 

Stiles feels like offering a cough drop, but luckily he doesn’t have any and is spared the epic fail that _offering Derek Hale a freaking cough drop_ would undoubtedly be. He rips half of the licorice candy off and chews it down.

“And how does Laura know when my birthday is or what my favorite sweets are?”

Derek raises both of his eyebrows this time. “Are you forgetting that we have most of your younger siblings over once a week for training? It’s not exactly hard to get them to talk about you.”

Ah, right, there was something there.

A few years ago, after the umpteenth time the Sheriff had to cover up one of the kids uncontrollably wolfing out in public (and replace a dozen pieces of furniture in their house that didn’t survive contact with werewolf claws on various occasions), he decided that his children needed to learn some control.  
Enter Laura Hale and what little was left of her pack after the infamous fire. Being allies was kind of inevitable, what with the Hales and the Stilinskis being the only two werewolf packs in the area (luckily so), but they also made a deal concerning the kids. Now, they go visit the Hale house every week in pairs for control and self-defense training.

“Okay,” Stiles nods, cramming the rest of his Twizzler into his mouth in one. “Thanks, I guess. I mean, tell Laura I said thanks, it was very nice of her.”

“I will, but, uh-“ Derek says quickly, throwing out an arm when Stiles tries to get into his Jeep.

“Er,” Stiles says dumbly, staring down at Derek’s huge hand on his chest.

“There’s something else,” Derek finishes, going back to stoic and grumpy in a heartbeat.

“Of course there is,” Stiles says under his breath, which is a little redundant, what with Derek being a werewolf with super-hearing and all that jazz. 

Derek harrumphs. “Laura wants me to let you know that the mauled body found in the woods last week fell victim to a rouge Omega. We took care of him last night, so there’s no need for you to worry, but Laura believes we should tell you because we’re allies.”

He sounds like he swallowed a script, but Stiles isn’t going to complain. By now he’s just really tired.

“Oh, okay,” he says slowly, “Good job?”

“Tell your dad he can close the case. Mountain lion,” Derek says flatly, ignoring Stiles’ last comment.

“Oh, he’s going to dig that,” Stiles says, deadpan, and brushes past Derek to open the driver’s door the other man was leaning against earlier. He hesitates before climbing in, though.

“Can I give you are ride somewhere?” he says, because he’s just that nice.

“I’ll run,” Derek says vaguely, “But you should probably wait for Lydia if you don’t want her to rip your head off.”

With that, he actually does run off into the directions of the woods behind the school, leaving Stiles to stupidly stare after him until Lydia reaches his side.

“What was Derek doing here?” she asks in passing, hopping into the passenger seat. “Ooh, Twizzlers, awesome, we were out.”

~

When Stiles pulls up at the house, he knows immediately that something is wrong.

Normally, Monday afternoon is a a special kind of hell, because the Sheriff is at the station like most days and Stiles and Lydia are the last ones to come home. That gives the rest of the kids a good three hours to wreak havoc.

They can’t hear anything on the way up the front walk, though. No screaming from the backyard. No concerning bangs from inside. No shouts from upstairs where Erica and Isaac or Jackson and Allison should be fighting.

_Silence._

Lydia glances at him warily as Stiles pushes the door open with dread.  
Nothing happens.

The Sheriff is sitting on the sofa reading the newspaper. Because he cancelled his afternoon shift. Because of Stiles’ birthday.

_Right._

Liam and Malia seem to be playing Draw and Rip at the coffee table.  
It’s a game that Stiles invented after the umpteenth time Liam was in tears after Malia had destroyed one of his precious drawings in her need to use claws on basically everything. So now Liam is drawing crude monsters and crayon blobs with huge teeth that Malia is _supposed_ to rip apart in order to “protect” them.  
Stiles thinks his idea was pretty awesome. Even though it costs them a lot of paper, but it’s not like Malia wouldn’t find anything else (and possibly more expensive) to shred.

Their dad smiles at them a little confusedly. “Something wrong, or are you planning on standing frozen in the threshold all afternoon?”

“I was expecting to be hit by something, to be honest,” Lydia says mildly.

“Or someone,” Stiles adds, “It’s a common occurrence.”

“Ah well,” his dad says, getting up from the sofa and coming over to give Stiles a strong hug. “Happy birthday, kiddo.”

“Thanks, dad. You know I’m not technically a kid anymore, though, right?”

“You keep thinking that,” the Sheriff says with a chuckle, mussing up his hair.

Lydia, however, is not that easily distracted.

“Where is everyone?” she inquires, narrowing her eyes as though she doesn’t buy the peace at all.

“Scott is doing homework with the twins, Ally’s working on an arts project that she’s not very fond of, Kira and Boyd were picked up half an hour ago and I’m having Jackson cleaning his room,” the Sheriff counts off proudly and Stiles is indeed very impressed.  
And suspicious.  
Peaceful vibes generally don’t survive very long in this household.

“Picked up by…?” Lydia asks, confused.

“It’s Monday, sweetheart,” their dad reminds her, “Laura took them to the Hale house for training.”

“Laura is in Oregon,” Stiles says automatically and the Sheriff frowns.

“Pretty sure it was her I saw in the car, kiddo.”

Stiles falters.  
He’s not able to dwell on what that means, however because Scott comes crashing down the stairs with Isaac hot on his heels.

“Did I hear “cake”?” he shouts obnoxiously and the sheriff winces.

“Pretty sure you didn’t,” Lydia says coolly, “because nobody said anything about cake.”

“But Stiles got home - hi, Stiles - and that means we can finally eat the cake!”

“Cake,” Malia cries approvingly and runs over to pull on Lydia’s skirt.

“To the kitchen, then,” Lydia sighs, very obviously preparing for a general sugar rush.

“Onwards!” Stiles calls, because frankly, he plans on joining that rush. It’s his birthday, after all.

Jackson and Erica come downstairs as well, doubtlessly catching the important parts of the conversation with their werewolf hearing.

“Me too,” Liam shouts, dashing over and barreling into the Sheriff’s legs. They march into the kitchen and making sure everyone gets an equally big slice, while leaving over enough for Boyd and Kira and making sure the cake doesn’t end up on the floor or walls, is a pretty messy affair.

Apparently it’s a loud one too, because all of five minutes later, Allison stomps in as well, fuming.

“Guys!” she shouts, loud enough to make everyone fall silent in surprise, “I’m trying to concentrate up there, what is even going on-?”

“Cake,” Scott supplies helpfully, smiling angelically at her and holding out a plate. “Want some?”

“Prepare for a sugar rush,” Lydia adds, wiping her hands on a paper towel with a grimace.

“It’s arts, what do you even need to concentrate for?” Jackson jeers before Allison can react to anything at all.

Stiles snorts, “Don’t let Boyd hear you say that.”

~

One hour later, when Stiles, Lydia and the Sheriff are sitting on the kitchen table, drowning in kids high on sugar, there’s a loud bang followed by a crash from the living room.

“I’m sorry!” Scott hollers half a second later.

The three more-or-less adults groan into their coffees.

“Please tell me it wasn’t the lamp next to the couch,” the Sheriff calls back.

“I can totally say that if it makes you feel any better,” Jackson’s dry voice resounds, “Doesn’t make it any less true.”

More groans.

“I knew it was too good of a day to be true,” Stiles deadpans, grinning wearily.

Lydia shrugs, “Look at the bright side. At least it wasn’t the TV.”

“Yet.”

“Pillow fight!” Isaac screams in the other room, unwittingly supporting Stiles’ point.

Apparently there was more sugar in that cake than they thought. And god knows what else. Well, Stiles figures, Boyd just doesn’t do things by halves. 

Chocolate fudge cake more like chocolate fuck-you’re-gonna-regret-this.


	2. My Head Is On Fire, But My Legs Are Fine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back :)
> 
> Massive Thanks to the people who already commented and kudo'ed, that really means a lot to me! I'd love to hear what you think of this second chapter :)
> 
>  
> 
> Title taken again from Fun.'s Carry On.  
> Any mistakes are mine.

Stiles has mashed potatoes in his hair.

This is officially a new low this week, and its only Wednesday. It’s the only afternoon during the week Stiles doesn’t have school, but with his dad on shift, Lydia stuck in AP biology and a bunch of kids on the loose, it’s not exactly a piece of cake.

“Isaac, I swear to god!” Stiles thunders, running down the stairs after the boy in only his sweatpants. “Give me my shirt back! Can’t you use a towel as a cape?”

Liam, who is perched on Stiles’ hip, wholly enjoying the ride, giggles. He’s the reason Stiles’ hair is a potato-scented mess, but that’s a problem for after he gets his shirt back. 

Stiles corners Isaac by the backdoor, exasperatedly making grabby hands at the red shirt the ten-year-old has wrapped around his shoulders.

“But I’m superman!” Isaac protests loudly, making himself heard over the loud music booming from the kitchen. “We don’t have any red towels, your shirt was the only thing I could think of!”

“But I was wearing it!” Stiles groans, gesturing to his bare chest.

“And now you’re not,” Isaac says innocently, wrenching the backdoor open and running out to join Scott, who is already sprinting up and down the backyard with a black shirt fluttering along behind him. Stiles is strongly suspecting Boyd’s shirt and Batman.

He knows how to pick his battles, though, and decides to just go back up and get another shirt. 

“Don’t you dare ruin it!” he yells after the boys for good measure before he slams the door shut.

“I’m hungry,” Liam pouts, vigorously patting Stiles’ shoulder and getting mashed potatoes there as well.

“That’s because you dipped your hands in your food instead of eating it.”

“It feels so funny,” Liam explains earnestly, rubbing his hands together. 

Stiles snorts. In that moment, because it’s just his kind of luck, the doorbell rings. 

“Someone’s at the door!” Allison shouts from upstairs, but of course nobody deigns to actually come answer.

“Oh thank you, that’s good to know,” Stiles shouts back, deadpan.

He looks down his naked chest, eyes the bits of potato on his ratty pants. Well, whoever decided to come by in this moment of hell will just have to deal with it. 

“It’s Derek and Cora,” Liam lets him know, but unfortunately Stiles has already turned the doorknob. It’s a little too late to run for it now. 

Sure enough, the Hale siblings are standing on their porch, clad in the usual leather and looking as flawless as ever. Stiles feels three times worse about his appearance when Derek raises his eyebrows and Cora looks him up and down with a smirk. With a huff, Stiles adjusts Liam on his hip and tries to preserve some of his dignity. 

“What can I do for you?”

Before either of them can answer, Boyd calls, “In here!” from the living room. Cora promptly squeezes past Stiles with a condescending pat on his potato-free shoulder and disappears into the house.

“I’m here to pick up Erica and Isaac for training?” Derek says eventually, looking rather unsure about that himself.

“You’re early,” Stiles blurts, consciously tugging at his sweatpants that’re riding a little low on his hips.

“Uh,” Derek goes, eyes darting to Stiles fingers for a moment. “Laura said half past two.”

Stiles realizes he has no clue how late it even is, when Erica walks by behind him. 

“You are both pathetic,” she states matter-of-factly, peering past Stiles to wave at Derek. “I’m going to go get Isaac.”

Stiles can only agree with her, but thankfully Liam has overcome his fascination with the mashed potatoes and saves Stiles from further embarrassment by demanding attention. _Derek’s_ attention.

“Catch me!” he squeals, flinging himself out of Stiles’ unresponsive arms. 

Derek has no choice but to catch him and now Stiles is confronted with Derek fucking Hale in his leather jacket with a toddler in his arms and consequently, mashed potatoes in his beard from where Liam is patting his cheeks.  
It’s unbearably cute and it _does things_ to Stiles, oh god.

Derek blinks as Liam chatters at him, looking even more lost but not shying away either, arms securely around the kid.

“Oh sh—I’m sorry. Lunch got a little out of hand,” Stiles says, rubbing the back of his neck. He doesn’t know what it is, but all the younger kids seem to adore Derek. Even Malia has had actual conversations with him.

“Do you wanna come in and get cleaned up?” he offers awkwardly, “The twins will probably be a while.”

“Uh, sure,” Derek nods, carrying Liam over the threshold and following Stiles into the downstairs bathroom. 

It’s small and stuffed, so Stiles has to squeeze past Derek to get to the wet wipes. Let him just say, werewolf muscles are fucking unfair.  
He frees Liam from the food smears and dirty hands first, while Derek is still holding him. It’s awfully domestic and Derek hasn’t glared in five minutes – ever since he arrived, actually – which has to be a record.

“Alright,” Stiles lifts Liam out of Derek’s arms and sets him finally back on his feet. “Go find Kira in the kitchen if you’re still hungry. And tell her to turn down the music, for god’s sake.”

“She says it helps her con-cen-ter,” Liam says, obediently leaving the room.

“Concen _trate_ , buddy,” Stiles calls after him belatedly and Derek chuckles. Stiles is not sure if he’s imagining things.  
They both start rubbing the potatoes off their skin and Stiles does a very poor job trying to fix his hair.

“Ah, screw this,” he says under his breath and adds louder, “Sorry again. I didn’t want to hold you up or anything. You’re probably really busy with… things that go bump in the night.”

It’s really terribly awkward and Stiles realizes very suddenly that he and Derek are rather close to each other in the small room. And he’s still shirtless.   
Fucking Isaac.   
Stiles turns and very carefully does not flee.

“I actually wanted to talk to you about that,” Derek says, back to business, as they walk back to the front door. “That Omega we took care of, Deaton’s taking a look at it. And we found another one in the woods, but it was already, uh, d-e-a-d.”

“Derek, bro,” Cora cuts in drily, shooting them a look from the sofa she’s sitting on with Boyd, “You know that most of the kids in this house know how to spell, right?”

“Anyway,” Derek continues, and yup, there’s that glare, Stiles was already missing it a little. “That’s two more Omegas than usual, so we’re having an emergency meeting at the animal clinic tomorrow night. Laura wants you and Lydia, if possible, to come. We might have to coordinate stakeouts.”

“Oh, Lydia’s gonna be ecstatic,” Stiles sighs, “but we’ll be there.”

Derek nods and pulls the door open. “Laura will bring the twins back and fetch Cora before dinner.”

“Okay, great, thank you... Erica! Isaac!” Stiles shouts over his shoulder, not sure of the kids location but certain that they can hear him anyway. “Time to go!”

Both of them come leaping down the stairs in their sportswear and Isaac flings the red shirt at Stiles.

“Here you go,” he says sweetly and follows Erica to Derek’s stupid Camero outside.

“Dork,” Stiles grumps and Isaac yells, “I heard that!” across the front lawn.

And then Derek in his leather jacket drives off in his beautiful car to werewolf training and Stiles is left with sticky potato hair, a shirt he’s not wearing and an unfortunate crush on a guy so out of his league, it’s ridiculous.

+++

 

A good 24 hours later, Stiles’ general situation has not improved by much.

“But _why_ didn’t you tell me sooner!?” Lydia is currently complaining, running back and forth in their shared room.

Stiles is lounging in his desk chair, idly spinning and trying to focus on an essay he has to hand in tomorrow.

“Lyds, I told you I was sorry. In between Malia climbing the kitchen curtains and Allison throwing Jackson's Lacrosse stick out of the window, I forgot. It happens. My sincerest apologies.”

Lydia gives a snarl. “Alright, fine, different question! Why did you even agree to go meet them _today_ of all times?”

“You really are overreacting… These are our only allies, remember? It’s an emergency meeting.”

Lydia cocks an eyebrow. “You mean to say, _Derek said_ it was an emergency meeting?”

Stiles stops spinning and crosses his arms, fixing his sister with a blank stare. She sighs and finally stops pacing, coming to a halt in front of Stiles.

“Sorry,” she says, “but I don’t have time to look at mauled bodies on Deaton’s exam table and neither do you. Dad’s got the late shift, Kira her study group and Boyd’s working at the ice rink.”

“I know all of that,” Stiles says, annoyed, closing his laptop with a snap.

“Oh, do you?” Lydia snaps, “Does that mean you also have someone to watch and cook dinner for six werewolf kids?"

“How about me?”

A new voice joins their conversation, and as Lydia turns, Stiles leans sideways to peer past her.   
Allison is leaning against the doorframe.

“There you go,” Stiles quips, pointing at the girl (because it’s not like he has a different plan, but he’s not exactly going to admit that right now).

“Before you say anything,” Allison continues when Lydia doesn’t look convinced at all, “Jackson and I can totally handle the kids for a few hours. Boyd taught us how to make spaghetti. We can tuck Liam and Malia in. Scott will do anything I ask him to. The twins will find something nondestructive to do for one night. And Kira is back by nine, anyways,” she counts off with a winning smile.

Stiles grins back and Lydia looks from Allison to Stiles with a huff. 

“Fine,” she states eventually, “but if the house is in pieces by the time we come back, it’s your fault.”

~

“On another note,” Lydia adds a little testily, half an hour later when they stop by the drive-thru on the way to the animal clinic, “I refuse to eat dinner next to a corpse.”

~

They end up eating their food (burgers, fries and milkshakes, which Lydia disapproves of but enjoys nonetheless) in the clinic’s deserted parking lot, sitting on the hood of the Jeep. Just when Lydia elbows Stiles for obnoxiously slurping the remainders of his milkshake, the Hales’ sleek black Camero rolls into the spot next to them. Laura, Derek and Cora, clad in leather as usual and looking ready to kick ass, climb out with more grace than Stiles could ever manage.

“Oooh, curly fries,” Cora gushes and proceeds to steal one. She turns to Laura and pouts. “Why did _we_ have to get dinner at that crappy Chinese place? They even fucked up the fried noodles.”

Stiles holds out the paper bag with the last handful of curly fries. “Here,” he tells Cora, because he feels generous. “Consider it payback for that pizza on Monday.”

Cora gives him a rare, honest smile and digs into the food with gusto. While Derek, standard scowl on point, keeps lurking on the other side of the Camero, Laura gapes at her sister in incredulity.

“You shared your food? With Stiles?”

“We’ve determined that Cora does in fact like me,” Stiles explains gleefully.

“In fact, we haven’t,” Cora retorts through a mouthful of fries and chucks the balled-up paper bag at his face.

“Of course she does,” Laura coos exaggeratedly, reaching out to painfully pinch Stiles’ cheek, “who wouldn’t like you. Right, Derek?”

Derek doesn’t move a muscle, but Stiles is positive that beneath his poker face, he wants to punch his sister. Lydia slides down the hood with a snort and chucks their empty cans and napkins into the nearest trash can. 

“Did you like the pizza anyways, Stiles?” Laura asks innocently.

Stiles gets off his car as well and looks anywhere but at Derek. “It was delicious, even cold,” he says honestly and tries to charm his way out of this conversation. Turns out that’s not necessary, because a second later, the backdoor of the clinic bangs open.

“Not to interrupt your little get-together,” Deaton says calmly, “but I don’t have all night.”

He turns on the spot and the five of them have no choice but to follow the man into the dimly lit examination room.

“So, what’s the sitch, Dr. D.?” Stiles jokes as he fills into the room after Lydia.

“Oh, hilarious,” she says under her breath, the roll of her eyes virtually audible. 

“Weak. You can do better than that,” somebody else comments, and if Stiles didn’t see Derek standing right next to him, didn’t see his lips moving, he wouldn’t believe it was Derek talking.

“It’s not my fault Erica and Malia love Kim Possible,” he mumbles to himself, after balking for a solid five seconds.

Deaton, showing not a single emotion on his face, ignores all of them in favor of pulling a white sheet off an exam table. He reveals the body of a middle-aged male werewolf, stuck in the middle of transformation, with fangs, claws and extra fur protruding. His entire front is covered in black goo.

“Wolfsbane?” Lydia guesses, wrinkling her nose as Laura and Cora lean closer with interest.

“Yes,” Deaton confirms, “I found traces of a common type of aconite in his blood. However, I can’t tell how it got there. The victim doesn’t have any gunshot wounds. There is a big amount of the typical black ooze all over the body and also, as Derek told me, around the place it was found. It seems like he suffered from the intoxication's symptoms for quite a while until he died. The amount of wolfsbane in his blood was just enough to kill him. It seems kind of comparable to an accidental overdose.”

Stiles and Lydia look at each other with raised eyebrows.

“Well,” Laura starts out with a mystified lilt to her voice, “I believe we can outvote the idea of Omegas using wolfsbane as a party drug.”

“But there aren’t any hunters in town, are there?” Lydia inquires sharply.

“Not as far as we know,” Laura shrugs, “Any new residents were unsuspicious, we didn’t find any traps in the woods and most importantly, nobody’s tried to shoot us lately.”

Silence settles in as they all try to think of possible explanations, but nobody seems to come up with anything.

“What about the second one?” Stiles wonders eventually, and Deaton springs into action. 

They follow him like ducklings to a second exam table, where blood is already staining the sheet covering the body.

“Don’t,” Stiles says faintly when Deaton makes to lift it, “I’d rather keep my burger where it is.”

Lydia shudders in agreement. The vet looks at the three Hales and Laura shrugs again.

“We saw it when we killed it,” Derek says curtly, motioning for Deaton to continue talking.

“Charming,” Stiles huffs, setting his eyes on the ceiling.

“This victim had a similar amount of aconite in his blood,” Deaton says, unperturbed, “Although he apparently reacted differently. I assume he would have eventually died as well, but managed to murder somebody first-“

“And got himself killed by these guys instead,” Stiles finishes, waving his hand lazily at the three Hale siblings.

“If he came into town unnoticed by all of us, it’s possible he wanted to keep a low profile,” Laura muses thoughtfully, prompting a snort from Cora.

“Yeah, sure, ripping that jogger apart on a crazy killing spree seems very low profile to me.”

Laura ignores her. “Doc, could a small enough dose of wolfsbane drive a werewolf insane instead of killing him right away?”

“I’d have to look into that,” Deaton says, frowning, “I haven’t heard of it, since all aconite poisonings I’ve seen were meant to kill, but I guess it wouldn’t be impossible… maybe with the right approach…”

“Wait,” Stiles cuts in, “I thought all Omegas go crazy anyway? Isn’t that a legit – well, not legit, but the obvious reason for this guy killing the jogger?”

“Being without a pack makes a wolf incredibly vulnerable,” Derek explains slowly, “it’s dangerous to be on your own as a werewolf, anyway, and they can also lose the connection to their human side. Lose control over the wolf, go feral, if you will. But it doesn’t always happen and it certainly doesn’t happen all at once. It takes a lot of loneliness to go crazy enough to kill a human, even for an Omega.” 

There is another beat of silence, that Stiles spends blatantly staring at Derek, until Lydia finally pipes up again.

“So what you’re saying is that two Omega wolves were intoxicated by a very small dose of wolfsbane, causing one to go berserk and the other to die, but we don’t know how or why they were poisoned.”

“A most accurate summary, yes,” Deaton confirms.

Lydia bites her lip and pulls a notebook out of her purse. She grabs a pen from a nearby desk and begins to scribble down a few numbers. Stiles, Deaton and the three Hales watch in confusion as she murmurs to herself for a good minute, before straitening up. 

“Statistically speaking, the number of supernatural occurrences and attacks in the last three month has risen by 14,7 percent compared to last year’s final quarter, if you add in these two Omegas. Even before that it would have been nearly eleven percent, what with that Troll and the harpies and the pixies.”

Cora raises an eyebrow and turns to Stiles. “Translation, please.”

“More monsters than usual since January.”

“Well,” Laura says with a concerned expression, “it might be a coincident, but if there’s increased supernatural activity we’ll have to find a reason to explain it. Until then we’re on high alert.”

“Can we discuss the specifics of that somewhere less depressing,” Lydia demands, eyeing the corpses. 

“You’re a banshee, shouldn’t you be used to death?” Cora says condescendingly.

“I did not choose to be a banshee,” Lydia snaps testily, “And being used to something doesn’t mean you have to like it.”

Stiles clears his throat. Time to diffuse the tension.  
“Hey, Doc, before we leave, d’you have my new mountain ash? I’m running dangerously low.”

“Yes, there are a few containers for you over there in the cabinet,” Deaton replies, pointing. “I’ll try to find something else to help you figure this out, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Let us know when we should come get the bodies to get rid of them,” Laura says in lieu of a thank you. Stiles grabs his ash and pulls Lydia out the backdoor with him.

“Follow us to the house,” Laura basically commands as she gets behind the wheel of the Camero, Derek grumpily taking shotgun.

“I was going to take a nice bath tonight,” Lydia muses glumly once the werewolves are out of earshot. “With extra bubbles and a nice book and maybe a few of that cookies Body made. Why did you have to get us roped into this?”

“ _You_ just mathematically proved that something’s wrong,” Stiles retorts as he puts the Jeep in reverse and backs out of the parking lot. “As much as I love ignoring a problem until it eventually goes away, I don’t think it’s an option here. People could get hurt.”

Lydia only huffs in response. 

 

+++

 

“Are you ever going to fix that front porch of yours?”

Laura and Lydia have been bent over a bunch of papers on the coffee table for half an hour now, discussing and making plans. Cora has disappeared upstairs ages ago, allegedly to go do homework. That leaves Stiles and Derek on the sofa, forced to make painfully awkward small talk.

“There’s nothing wrong with my porch.”

Derek is not good at small talk. No surprises there.

“It doesn’t have any stairs!” Stiles laments, “I have to jump three feet in order to reach the front door. We’re not all werewolves with extra muscles on our muscles.”

“Poor you,” Derek deadpans.

After the fire, Laura and Derek spent years rebuilding the Hale house, bringing it back to its former grandeur. Mostly. The house has a severe lack of curtains, sources of light, and obviously the Hales are not very fond of stairs, either.

“C’mon, dude,” Stiles groans, tipping his head back, “I don’t want to be here anymore than you do, but we’ll have to sit it out until those two,” he points at the girls, “are finished. So at least give me something I can work with here, okay?”

Derek breathes heavily through his nose. “I don’t mind being here.”

“Well, yes,” Stiles says, exasperated, “This is your house, after all, what I meant was-“

“I know what you meant.” Derek puts on his frowny face and stares at his shoes and Stiles is going to give up. On everything. 

He heaves a sigh and is just about to dig out his phone, screw socially acceptable behavior, but then Derek speaks again.

“How are the kids doing?”

Stiles blinks. “Are you seriously asking about the kids right now?”

“I like them,” Derek says stubbornly and Stiles is helpless against the fond smile forming on his face.

“They like you, too. God knows why, though,” he jokes gently and that’s definitely a tiny, tiny smirk on Derek’s face there. Jackpot.

“How’s Malia?” he asks again.

“Oh, good. Her teacher said last week that she has finally stopped growling every time someone passes her chair, so that’s progress. She’s getting rather good at writing, too, but she just won’t utter a single word in class. It’s gonna turn into a real problem if she doesn’t get over it any time soon.”

“I don’t think she has anything much to get over,” Derek says honestly, “Malia’s not shy, she’s just incredibly stubborn. If she doesn’t want to talk, she won’t.”

Stiles hums. “I always thought it was a matter of trust. She talks to us, because we’re her pack, she trusts us.”

“But she doesn’t always say a lot, does she? I mean, of course you’re her pack and she trusts you, but she talks to me, too, and I’m not in her pack. Two weeks ago, she lectured Laura on how you put the cornflakes into the bowl first, before the milk. She talked for two minutes straight.”

Stiles is pretty stunned by all that information brought to him by _Derek_. 

“I’m not following,” he says blankly.

“I think she talks when she needs to,” Derek shrugs, “Only when it’s really important.”

“But school is important,” Stiles says automatically, realizing a second later how stupid he sounds. 

Derek huffs a laugh. “Not to a six-year-old werecoyote.”

“Huh. You’re probably right. What does Malia care about basic math, as long as the cornflakes go into the bowl first. That girl has got her priorities set straight.”

Derek grins. “She’ll be fine.”

“Yeah…”

To their right, Laura drops her forehead onto the table surface with a loud groan.

“Uh, did Allison already rip Jackson’s head off?” Derek says quickly, actually turning his body to Stiles a little now.

“Uh, not that I know of? Why would she?”

“When he was over for control training on Tuesday, he was really fidgety. When I asked, he told me he stepped on one of Allison’s arrows and broke it in half.”

“Uh oh,” Stiles goes. 

There are few things Jackson and Allison haven’t done to each other in their ongoing feud, few days they don’t spend fighting about anything and everything, but if there is one thing Jackson wouldn’t dare touch (in fact, nobody would) it’s Allison’s bow and her arrows. 

“If Jackson hid it, she probably hasn’t found it or noticed it’s gone yet. Otherwise there would’ve already been blood… now that I think about it, this is probably the reason he agreed to help Allison babysit tonight!”

Derek makes an amused sound of agreement.

“Brownie points won’t help him once she finds out, though,” Stiles muses tiredly, “She’s gonna kick his ass.”

“Allison is one of the sweetest kids I know, but her fury is a force to be reckoned with,” Derek contributes gravely.

“Aren’t my siblings the only kids you know?”

“…Shut up.”

“Boys!”

Laura snaps her fingers into their direction and literally pops their bubble. Stiles can _watch_ the corners of Derek’s mouth drop back into his customary scowl.

“We figured it out the best way we could,” Lydia says tiredly, eyes glued to what seems to be a timetable. “Stake-outs every evening out in the preserve, pairs of two only. No solo action. This way,” she indicates the paper, “Kira and Boyd’ll only have to help out once a week each, that was the best we could do… It’s Cora, you,” she points at Stiles, “and me two evenings, and then Derek and Laura three. Various combinations, no complaining. This was difficult enough as it is.”

Stiles reaches for the list with a frown on his face, skimming over it. 

“That’s two out of my three free evenings… “ Stiles mumbles to himself, “We’ve got three months to finals, when am I supposed to study?”

“In the car on the stake out,” Derek says plainly, pointing at the column labeled ‘Monday’.  
Beneath it, ‘Derek + Stiles’ is scribbled boldly over a number of crossed out names. “I can quiz you.”

Stiles does not have anything to say to that, which is an extremely uncommon occurrence. It’s possible that he gapes at Derek rather unattractively for a few seconds. 

“I do hope we’ll have this figured out before finals,” Lydia sighs, rubbing her eyes. “I don’t think I could handle it.”

Laura tsks. “Oh, come on, Lydia. My informant tells me you had enough credits to make it into MIT last year.”

“Erica is not an informant.”

“It was actually Jackson, but my point stands.”

“I’m not fond of putting more on my plate than necessary,” Lydia says with a lazy smirk, “I like my peace and quiet too much.”

“That sounds like something I would say,” Stiles remarks in awe, “I’m finally rubbing off on you, it’s about time.”

“I didn’t think you ever got anything resembling peace and quiet in that house of yours,” Laura jokes, but most of it gets drowned by Lydia’s phone going off.

“Sorry,” she says and frowns as she answers.

It’s almost fascinating to watch: Lydia’s expression freezes into an impeccable poker face, she says “Yes,” three times in a row and hangs up. 

“Alright, we should head home,” she says after a beat, with a funny lilt to her voice, “Allison set dinner on fire.”

~

“I didn’t do it!” is the first thing Allison shouts at them from where she sits on the steps of a small ambulance in front of the house. An EMT is wrapping up a burn on her forearm. “This is all Jackson’s fault!”

While Lydia just looks at her with her mouth comically standing open, Stiles does a quick scan of the situation.

The house seems intact, at least from the outside, and since there aren’t actually any firefighters around, as Lydia had hysterically predicted, the fire can’t have been that bad. Allison doesn’t have any other obvious injuries apart from the one on her arm and Jackson, who is sulking on the sidewalk, looks okay as well. Deep breaths, now, Stiles reminds himself. First things first.

“Where are the kids?”

“Upstairs. Don’t freak out, okay? Except for this,” Allison jerks her burned arm with a grimace, “and an, um, medium sized scorch on the wall above the stove, nothing and nobody got hurt.”

“What happened?” Lydia inquires shrilly, though the relief is clearly perceptible on her face.

Allison rolls her eyes in annoyance. “Apparently nobody ever taught Jackson how to handle a stove! I was gone to check on Malia for _five minutes_!”

“I don’t care about that, someone explain what happened right now!”

“You _said_ to turn up the heat under the pan!” Jackson pipes up angrily.

“I said turn up the heat under the POT,” Allison yells, “To get the water for the pasta boiling, you idiot!”

“What pan? What pot?!” Lydia shrieks and by now the four of them are just shouting over each other in a mixture of shock and fury.  
The EMT wisely excuses himself.

“I was gonna brown the ground beef in the pan and cook the past in the pot-“

“Well you should have told me!”

“-for Spaghetti Bolognese, which _I did tell you_ , dumbass! And when I came back the oil in the pan had caught fucking fire! And when I had to put it out, because this asshole was too busy screaming in pain, I burned my wrist!”

“Allison, language!”

“I’d say we have bigger issues right now, Stiles, concentrate on the fact that these two set the kitchen on fire, will you! And what do you mean, _screaming in pain_?!”

“Oh, come on, nothing that bad happen, we can just paint over the mark, and Ally’s burn isn’t that bad either. Look at her complaining, she’s fine.”

“Thanks for that, but do I have to remind you that we had to wait for half an hour before calling 911, because I had to watch the skin on your arm grow back first??”

“ _What?!_ ”

“Well the healing thing would have been a little hard to explain…”

“Why the hell didn’t you call _us_?”

“I heal either way, and we were thinking, if you saw my arm practically roasted, you’d freak out-“

“Damn straight!” Lydia full on screams, and the poor EMT, who was just about to carefully come forward again, shrinks in on himself.

“Will you guys be fine?” he mouths at Stiles with a frightened look at Lydia.

“Possibly,” Stiles sighs and waves him off.

As the ambulance drives off with squeaking tires, Lydia slowly turns to Stiles. She lifts her shoulders a little and opens her mouth with a blank look on her face, but nothing comes out.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Stiles says, defeated, “Dead bodies and blow-ups instead of bubble baths and cookies, this is all my fault, dad’s gonna kill us. What did I forget?”

Lydia only blinks, but unfortunately, Jackson opens his mouth. “Well, we kinda didn’t have dinner yet…”

Allison facepalms.

Lydia keeps blinking in an increasingly concerning manner. “I think I’m gonna scream,” she says eventually and the other three’s eyes widen.

“ _DON’T_.”

~

“You shouldn’t have left your brother alone in the kitchen.”

“I’ve realized.”

“And _you_ should be old enough not to set something on fire. I don’t even know how you did that.”

“Me either.”

“Neither of you are allowed near the stove ever again.”

“Okay. “

“And you’re both grounded for a week.”

“…Fine.”

“And you do not call an ambulance for a first degree burn. You call me, or one of your older siblings, so we can take you to the hospital if necessary. The two of you will pay for the ambulance with your allowances,” the Sheriff finishes his lecture tiredly.

Allison and Jackson nod meekly and scurry out of the room.

Stiles has his head in his hands on the kitchen table, utterly exhausted, and only knows his dad is taking the chair next to his by the scraping of its legs against the ground. The last time he checked, Lydia was standing in the middle of the kitchen, alternating between glaring at Jackson and staring at the black mark over the stove with disgust. She hasn’t yet uttered the inevitable _I told you so_ , but Stiles figures it’s only a matter of time. She’s probably saving it for when their dad is not around anymore and Stiles is grateful enough.

“I can’t believe you left them to fend for themselves.”

The disappointment in the Sheriff’s voice is enough to make Stiles’ stomach plummet with guilt. Lydia is having none of it, though.

“Look, dad, I’m really sorry this happened, but we’re a family of _twelve_. You’re the Sheriff, Stiles and I are in our senior year and I’m not even going to start on the supernatural stuff, which is what we were dealing with tonight, by the way. Sometimes, some of the kids will _have_ to fend for themselves for a few hours, it’s entirely inevitable.”

“And it’s not like we left them alone for a week, dad,” Stiles contributes, albeit a little more placative. Their dad had to leave work early because of them, after all. “It was three hours and a pot of spaghetti. And from what Scott told me, everything would have been fine if not for this entirely unexpected, unfortunate accident.”

“Remember that one time you two were on that school trip for a week, about two years ago, when I couldn’t take time off work, and we didn’t get someone to watch the kids for that _one_ afternoon?” the Sheriff mentions almost casually. 

Stiles shudders at the memory. He finally looks up and meets Lydia’s eye across the room. She looks like she just took a bite out of a lemon.

“Point,” she concedes.

“I’m reinstating the ‘There always has to be someone over the age of fourteen at home’ rule,” the Sheriff says a little smugly, but with the air of someone who is putting his foot down.

“Agreed,” Stiles sighs, already trying to figure out how to stick to the stakeout plan that’s tucked away in Lydia’s purse with their dad on high alert.

“Just one more thing,” Lydia says carefully as the Sheriff gets up in order to head up to bed. “I know they need a punishment for that,” she points her thumb over her shoulder at the scorch, “but grounding Allison and Jackson is probably not a very wise move.”

“Sorry?”

“Sharing a room is bad enough for them, but with nowhere else to go?” Stiles gives a dry laugh. “They’re going to rip each other’s heads off by the end of the week.”

“Well, they’ll have to deal with it,” his dad says gruffly, and walks out.

Stiles and Lydia wait in silence, listening to their father reach the top landing. They look at each other.

“Of course he doesn’t care,” Lydia says bitterly, “ _he’s_ not the one who’s going to have to deal with their endless fighting.”

Stiles drops his head back into his hands and sighs. “Don’t say that. It’s not his fault, he’s doing-“

“All he can, working harder than anyone to grant us a good life, I know.” Lydia rubs her face. “I know. It’s just frustrating sometimes, you know?”

“Of course I know,” Stiles says, smiling weakly, “I’m right here with you.”

 

+++

 

As it turns out, Stiles was wrong.  
Allison and Jackson are not ripping each other’s heads off by the end of the week, they do it by Friday. Actually, Stiles figures, sprinting up the stairs, they’ve passed beyond all ripping, rowing and arguing after only 24 hours. It’s _war_. 

Allison was already more than pissed at Jackson for screwing up her cooking attempt, but of course she found her broken arrow right the next morning, tucked away in a corner of Jackson’s side of the room. Her anger was only fueled by Jackson denying it, who in turn didn’t take well to Allison flushing his homework down the toilet in retaliation… and with no way of escaping and avoiding each other, it just kind of went downhill. 

Now, Stiles is heading right into the lion’s den, because the two kids are having their loudest fight yet and it’s starting to sound a little dangerous.

“Whoa, whoa,” is the first thing he says after he bursts through the door. 

Allison and Jackson are standing opposite to each other, full on screaming with red faces. The floor around them is littered with paraphernalia and just as Stiles watches, Jackson chucks a book across the room. The worst thing however, is that Jackson is completely wolfed out, baring his fangs at Allison, who has an arrow pointed at the boy’s shoulder.

“Oh my god,” Stiles says blankly, but they don’t hear him over their shouting.

“You are such a fucking asshole, can you even hear yourself talking?! Do you _think_ before you talk-?”

“Did YOU think before you became such a stuck-up priss?!”

“I have the right to be angry with you for destroying my arrow, that’s only fair, not prissy!”

“How often do I have to tell you- IT’S NOT MY FAULT IF YOU LEAVE THEM LYING AROUND!”

“They were on my bed! If one rolls off and you don’t open your fucking eyes and step on it, how is it my fault?! And they are fucking expansive and IMPORTANT TO ME,OKAY?!”

Jackson roars and chucks another book into the wall. Stiles realizes that he’s doing it in order to keep himself from actually attacking Allison with his claws instead, but if he has to throw things in order to not maul his sister, that’s not reassuring at all, nope.

“That’s ENOUGH!” Stiles hollers, and the kids flinch in surprise. “Allison- _drop it_. We don’t use our weapons in the house and we certainly don’t point them at a fellow member of this family! Jackson-” he fixes the heavy breathing boy once Allison has thrown her bow and arrow to the side, “get a grip. We practiced this. Control yourself.”

Jackson’s fangs slowly shrink back, but he gives Stiles a betrayed look. “She was going to shoot me! Was I supposed to just let her?!”

“Of course not, but you can heal and Ally can’t, you know that!”

“And you wolfed out first, by the way, was I supposed to just let you tear me apart?” Allison mocks with a snarl.

“Arrrgh!” Jackson screams in utter frustration, pulling his hair, “I hate you, and I hate that you’re so much like your family!”

Stiles abruptly holds his breath. Oh, no.

Allison has gone very still. “What do you mean?” she grits out sharply, her hand quivering as it grips empty air at her side where her bow would be.

“You know what I mean!”

“Jackson!” Stiles calls, sensing impending danger. 

He’s backing towards the door, torn between running to get some backup (because holy shit this is getting bad) and the need to stay and make sure his siblings don’t actually kill each other.

“What?!” the boy shouts, rounding on Stiles now, “She’s a fucking hunter! Just like her family was! Until, what was it again, oh right, her family killed mine! Look at her, she’s an archeress, she was going to shoot me because for six years she was raised by a family of lunatic werewolf killers! Who the hell thought it would be a good idea to take her into a family made up _almost completely of werewolves_?!” 

This time, it seems like the entire house goes quiet. Stiles realizes belatedly that most people in this place have no problem overhearing conversations down the landing, especially one this loud, whether they want to or not. There’s a distinct noise that sounds a lot like glass breaking downstairs. It feels like nobody breathes anymore, not even Jackson, who only now seems to be realizing what he just said to his twelve year old sister. 

“Well,” Allison says eventually, while Stiles is still lost for words.

She is holding it together remarkably well, but even though her voice is entirely void of emotion, the wetness in her eyes can’t be hidden. 

“Well. Nice to know what you really think, I guess. Yeah, um… I’m just gonna… go.”

She runs out without a second glance at either of them and a few seconds later, the bathroom door slams shut. Stiles exhales heavily.

“Congratulations, mate. That was probably the lowest blow ever in the history of this family.”

Jackson doesn’t say anything and continues to look at the spot Allison just vanished from with an absent-minded expression.

With an unimpressed sigh, Stiles grabs the bow and arrow that are still lying on the floor, thrown aside unusually carelessly. 

“This,” he holds them out to Jackson, “has saved our lives more than once. Ally is an archeress and she might even be a huntress, and she’s definitely a genius at both of it, but you know just as well as I do that she’d never purposely shoot you. As you said yourself… most of her family are a werewolf.”

“And if I remember correctly,” somebody else adds resentfully, and Stiles turns to see Lydia in the hallway outside the room, “Ally’s family didn’t kill yours; they murdered each other until only the two of you were left. There’s a difference.”

Jackson flinches at her words, but Lydia is already walking on, starting to knock on the bathroom door and plead with Allison to let her in.

Stiles begins to feel a tiny bit sympathetic with his little brother - it takes a lot to make up for screwing up that badly. 

“Good luck winning those two back, bro.”

~

It’s after midnight when the combined persuasiveness of Stiles, Lydia and Boyd causes Allison to finally leave the bathroom. She’s terse and closed-off, and only comes out because they promise she doesn’t have to sleep in the same room as Jackson tonight.  
Boyd cups her head with his big hand for a moment and proceeds to go to bed. 

“You can sleep in my bed tonight,” Stiles whispers softly, “I’m gonna take the sofa. Lydia already got your pajamas out of… from your bed. Get some rest, alright, love?”

He pecks her forehead after Allison has nodded once, mutely, and watches as she tiptoes away.

“You sure?” Lydia inquires with wide eyes, clenching a pair of Hawkeye pajama bottoms.

“Yeah, yeah. You go look after Ally… she shouldn’t be alone tonight.”

 

Ten minutes later, after he’d finally been able to use the bathroom to get ready, Stiles lowers himself onto the living room sofa with an exhausted groan. In less than eight hours, a bunch of kids will storm the kitchen and living room, not caring that it’s the weekend, and he’ll have to make breakfast for them. He’s also 65 percent sure he has a test on Monday, or maybe a project due, but no idea what either might be about.

He finds a new text on his phone, right before turning it off.

**Derek, 22:57** : Were you guys okay last night?

Stiles’ stomach does a tiny swoop.

**Stiles, 00:23** : Define ‘okay’

He doesn’t expect an answer that night (or ever), but his phone buzzes only moments later.

**Derek, 00:24** : Anybody hurt?

**Stiles, 00:26** : Not physically, no.

**Stiles: 00:27** : But Allison did rip Jackson’s head off in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's a lot more angsty plot-developing in the middle part here, I really hope it didn't get to confusing...
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	3. We Are Not Shining Stars (I Never Said We Are)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had a bit of a writer's block on this chapter and lost my motivation, which Kevin4baconhugs gave me back with their lovely comment, so thanks for that :)
> 
> This chapter is also pretty Sterek-centric, I guess; also Derek&feelings because I like to think that Derek is only human and as such can only hold in his emotions for so long.
> 
> Have fun reading and please let me know what you think, that would be really helpful :)
> 
>  
> 
> Chapter title from Fun.'s Carry On.
> 
> Unbeta'ed.

Stiles has never been this nervous on a stake-out before. 

It’s got nothing to do with the monsters they are supposed to look out for, or even the new, mysteriously mauled body that Lydia found banshee-style in the woods over the weekend.  
It’s got everything to do with the hot, leather-clad werewolf that is currently occupying the seat next to Stiles’ in the Camero (because god forbid Derek ever set foot into the Jeep unless his life is threatened), which is parked just outside the preserve. 

Of course, this is not the first time Derek and Stiles are stuck on a stake-out with only each other, trapped in small spaces together, on the run from the latest supernatural that wants their asses… etcetera, etcetera. But this is different, because they are not actually running from or fighting an acute danger… they’re just sitting there. In this beautiful but tiny car, weirdly close together, with nothing to do but _talk_ all night and, oh god, that is Derek’s arm brushing his elbow.

Stiles is already sweating through his undershirt and they’ve been here all of five minutes. He needs to get a grip before this Derek-thing (Stiles is so not ready to put a label on it) gets out of hands.

“So does your dad have any leads yet?” Derek asks, with the air of someone who is entirely unbothered, maybe even somewhat bored, by the situation.  
The sucker.

Stiles wiggles uncomfortably in his seat. 

“Uh,” he says stupidly, trying to get it together, “Um, he got the coroner’s report this morning, but it’s not exactly helpful. Apparently they found no evidence of self-defense, which basically means the victim just _lay there_ while the attacker got all close and personal with its inner organs - like, who does that? Also, there was a small cut on the back of the dead guy’s neck with an undefinable substance in it. Other than that, nothing.”

Derek hums. “Sounds like our department.”

“That’s what my dad said, too,” Stiles says, squeaking a little because Derek said _‘our’_. 

He’s officially turning into a schoolgirl with a crush, this is horrible.

 

They settle in, windows open a crack so Derek will be able to hear anything that might be coming for them. The expected awkward silence stretches between them for a while, until it gets too much for Stiles to bear and he turns up the radio. Derek hums again.

“I really like this song.”

Stiles balks. “You _like_ it?”

“What?” Derek snaps, good mood gone, “You think I’m not capable of liking something?”

“Oh, rubbish. But this is When We Were Young by _Adele_. This makes you, like, fifty percent less intimidating. You’re just a big marshmallow beneath all the leather and the scowling, aren’t you? What else are you hiding from me?”

Now Derek just looks confused. “I- I just think she’s a really good singer?”

“Yes, Adele slays, obviously. Focus, Derek, are there any other surprising passions of yours that I should know about?”

The oh-so-badass werewolf seems to be genuinely thinking about that. 

“I really like Dickens.”

“The books? Oh god, please don’t tell me you’re one of those over-sophisticated people, I already got Lydia for that.”

“That is ridiculous; you can’t tell me you of all people have never read a novel by Dickens.”

“…Point. David Copperfield is pretty good. What else?”

“Are you serious,” Derek says flatly, managing, as so often, to make a question sound like a threat.

“Very much,” Stiles says, unfazed, “Please continue to tell me all things that move your soul, spill your guts to me, show me the _real_ Derek Hale.”

“You are such a dork. Fine. No laughing.”

“Deal,” Stiles quips at once. This is a one-time chance.

“I love Thin Mints.”

“… The Girl Scout Thin Mints?” Stiles clarifies, just to be sure. He can’t really believe this is happening.

“Cannot live without them. But I hate eggplants.”

“Why?”

“The name is weird. Eggs don’t grow anywhere and they aren’t purple, either.”

“ _The name is weird_?” Stiles repeats incredulously. “You’re weird!”

“You asked.”

“Right, sorry,” he says at once, because everything about this is too good to let go. 

Stiles is not sure how they went from an awkward, silent stakeout to Derek actually talking about himself for a change. And without any embarrassment, too; Stiles would lie if he said he wasn’t impressed. 

A few quiet minutes later, when Stiles is already considering this crazy episode over and done with, Derek speaks again.

“My favorite time of the week is when Cora comes by on Sundays to watch Criminal Minds with me. It also happens to be the only time of the week she doesn’t seem to be constantly annoyed by my presence,” he says, a little bitter, and leaves Stiles baffled.

“I- well, she’s sixteen, dude,” Stiles starts carefully, unsure whether he’s supposed to comment, but the need to reassure is too strong. “It’s kind of her duty. Also, constant annoyance is Cora’s default setting, if we’re being honest. It’s her charm. Don’t take it personally.”

“So you say.”

“Uh, yes I do. I’ve got four little sisters myself, in case you forgot.”

Derek doesn’t seem to hear him. He’s staring through the window into the dusky evening and looks quite bothered. Stiles wonders how long he wanted to talk to somebody about that.

“The life we lead…” Derek says slowly, still looking away, “it’s so dangerous. And I try to protect her, but she just won’t let me.”

“Cora is tough, though,” Stiles says confidently, “She can hold her own.”

Derek finally turns back and stares at a point slightly to Stiles’ right. “I know. She’s tougher than me. But she and Laura are the only family I have left. If something happens to her…”

Once more, Stiles is rendered speechless. Just as he’s is about to leave his profound trance and react to Derek being so much unlike himself, because this is definitely not normal (so many _feelings_ , since when does Derek even admit to having those), there’s a hollow bang over their heads.

“Did something just fall onto the car?” Stiles blurts out, stomach already sinking with dread. 

Of course this was going to happen right now, Stiles is never this lucky without everything going south in the end.

“Ah, son of a bitch. Fucking shit,” Derek swears heartily, which would be kind of really hot, if it wasn’t for that super creepy, reptile-like face that is now dangling upside-down in front of the wind-shield. 

Fucking shit indeed.

“No, something just _jumped_ onto the car,” Derek corrects belatedly, ripping the driver’s door open.

“Not good,” Stiles observes, heart pumping like crazy as he, too, jumps out of the car, grabbing his new bat on the way.

The... the _thing_ that’s prancing on top of the black vehicle hisses at them and Stiles feels like he’s seen it before somewhere. It’s a really horrifying mixture of snake and human, body covered in greenish scales, and complete with a long tail, a row of sharp, pointy teeth, and yellow eyes.

Derek, on the other side of the car, growls back and Stiles assumes he’s wolfing out (he’d better fucking be), but he can’t check right now because he’s too busy wielding his bat like a madman. Which does nothing to help him as the creature swings his tail at top speed, so fast Stiles can’t follow it, but a second later he feels a stinging pain on the back of his neck and his whole body goes limp.

“Uh oh,” Stiles says bemusedly, while he loses all control of his muscles and goes down like a sack of potatoes, unable to move anymore. 

Derek gives a concerned kind of roar.

“Damnit,” Stiles curses quietly, and adds louder, “I’m fine, just fight it!”

With his cheek pressed to the leafy ground, Stiles can only see the bottom half of the car, but he’s already seen enough to know what’s happening. He saw that thing before alright, in the Hales’ bestiary. With a vivid description of venom that paralyzes anybody that comes in contact with it.

Yup, this is just great.

From the other side of the car, noises of a deep fight reach Stiles where he’s uselessly lying on the floor. He can see Derek’s shoes and the monsters clawed feet through the gap under the car, but by the looks of it, they could just as well be engaged in a dedicated dance battle. That means that Stiles has no idea what exactly is going on, which is terrifying, and Derek doesn’t sound like he’s having a lot of fun either.

“It’s a Kanima!” Stiles shouts as loudly as possible, simultaneously trying to move his feet, his arms, anything. “Avoid the venomous tip of the tail at all cost!”

“Thanks-a-lot,” Derek roars back in between (what sound like) well-placed punches, “for that incredibly unhelpful comment!”

And now, that’s just unfair.

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Stiles snaps sarcastically, “I’m afraid that’s all I can do for you right now, because in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind of paralyzed, and I would really like for you not to be as well, because then _we fucking die_!”

“Will you shut up!?”

Stiles watches as the Kanima’s feet stagger backwards a few feet. Derek must have landed a good punch, then.

“I’m trying to kill this asshole snake over here and you are not helping!”

“Are you fucking kidding me, I AM UNABLE TO MOVE, how hard is that to understand?!”

Derek howls, either because the ‘asshole snake’ just got him or because Stiles is frustrating him so much. Stiles is kind of hoping it’s the latter, if only for the sake of their lives. 

The fighting goes on for a while, growing more violent by the second, as far as Stiles can tell. He still can’t move a muscle, which is exceptionally inconvenient right now, and no matter how hard he thinks, he doesn’t magically come up with a solution for this situation.

Just as he decides that Derek is just going to have to save the day and kill the monster, said werewolf’s lower legs suddenly appear is Stiles’ vision. On the other side of the car, Derek just fell down on his knees, and this is probably the end.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Stiles breathes frantically, watching on in panic while finally managing to raise one finger slightly into the air. But one finger is not going to help Derek very much, who is howling in pain now, oh god, this is bad.

All of a sudden, there is a new sound, and Stiles realizes that Derek’s howl from a few minutes ago might not have been directed at him or the Kanima. Powerful running steps of someone coming closer by the second make the ground beneath Stiles’ head tremble slightly. Out of the corners of his eyes, he catches a glimpse of a human-shaped (thank god) figure leaping over him and the car all at once.

The noises turn up again, even more violent than before if possible. Stiles is drumming all the fingers of his left hand against the forest floor by the time a loud roar resounds in the tress around them, and then he is faced with the Kanima, which goes to the ground as well, head turned towards Stiles, a pair of empty yellow eyes boring into his own across the dirty floor beneath the car.

“You’re welcome,” says a familiar voice smugly. 

_Laura_.

“Thank fuck,” Stiles tells the underside of the Camero exhaustedly and watches Derek’s knees get back up. 

Before long, he’s hoisted up off the floor himself, but his legs don’t work yet and he collapses into a wall of muscles.

“Ugh,” he says eloquently, not even caring that he’s using Derek’s bloody chest as a pillow.

“Are you alright?” Laura asks, stepping into focus to Stiles’ right.

“Of course he is,” Derek says gruffly, “All he did was lie around.”

Stiles is happy to notice that he can move his arm enough to punch Derek’s shoulder (it’s a truly pathetic hit, but it’s the thought that counts).

“I hate you so much right now.”

“I just saved your life,” Derek argues and shoves back, but thankfully without letting go of Stiles. 

Otherwise he would tumble back down; the feeling in his legs has not returned just yet.

Laura clears her throat. “Pretty sure _I_ was the one saving both of your lives.”

“She’s right,” Stiles agrees at once. “Thank you, Laura, for not letting us get teared apart by that creepy snake-hybrid. We owe you one.”

Derek’s chest vibrates a little as he huffs out a probably involuntary laugh.

“My pleasure,” Laura says humbly, and Stiles is reminded of something.

“Oh, while we’re at it, thanks again for the Twizzlers for my birthday. I forgot to tell you last week and I don’t trust this guy,” he pats Derek’s arm, “to deliver the message. Did he?”

Derek suddenly goes very stiff beneath Stiles, but he’s distracted by Laura asking, “… Did he what?” in a confused voice.

“Tell you I said thank you for the Twizzlers!” Stiles repeats, thinking that maybe she’s still a little high on adrenalin. 

There’s a beat of silence, then:

“What Twizzlers?”

The next moment, Derek drops his arms and takes a step back, causing Stiles to lose his balance at once. He’s falling face-first towards the ground, but Laura grabs the back of his shirt with her inhuman strength just in time and carefully leans him against the car instead.

“Dude, what the hell?!” Stiles seethes, gripping the side mirror to regain his balance.

Derek takes one panicked look at the two of them and bolts. Runs away and disappears into the trees, just like that.

“What. The. Hell.” Stiles repeats, looking at Laura, who seems to be thinking very hard.

“What exactly happened on your birthday with Derek and Twizzlers?” she wants to know, just as Stiles thinks that this is probably a really inappropriate moment to have this conversation. But it’s not like he can leave just yet, so.

“ _You_ bought me a huge box of Twizzlers that Derek delivered to me at the school,” he says slowly, already sensing that that’s probably not how it happened. 

“No,” Laura says just as slowly, but more in an _are you nuts?_ kind of way, which is entirely unflattering, by the way. “I bought you this hilarious Avengers shirt that I keep forgetting at home whenever I see you or one of your siblings.”

“Which means…”

“Derek gave them to you himself,” Laura finishes flatly. “And then he pushed it on me, because that idiot is too emotionally stunted to admit he gave somebody a birthday present, god forbid.”

Stiles is nodding along, even though is brain just about melted. No mathematical theory of Lydia’s, no supernatural disaster is as confusing as _Derek fucking Hale_ giving Stiles candy for his birthday. A situation like this is entirely unprecedented, and Stiles has no idea what to think right now.

“…That means you weren’t in Oregon recently either, were you?”

“ _What_?!”

“I’m taking this as a ‘no’.”

“I’m going to hit him.”

 

Shaking her head slightly, Laura walks around the car to get back to their dead monster. Still wobbly on his feet, and only by using the car as support, Stiles manages to follow her. Pulling his phone out, he can finally feel the last reminders of Kanima venom leave his body.  
He shoots a quick text to Lydia and proceeds to dial his dad’s number.

“Uh, hey dad, you still at the station? Yeah, remember that substance you found in the victims neck wound? Let Dr. Deaton analyze it. I have a feeling I know what it was,” he says into the phone, training his eyes on the dead Kanima that’s oozing black blood onto the forest floor.

“This is incredibly disgusting,” he tells Laura casually after hanging up on his dad. 

Laura snorts, and prods the dead creature with the tip of her foot. “Say that after you helped me put him into the trunk.”

“Wha- I’m not touching it.”

“You will if you want a ride out of here.”

“…Rude. Fine, on three.”

 

They put the dead Kanima into the Camero’s trunk (Stiles pities the car nearly as much as himself as he used dead leafs to wipe black goo off his hands) and Laura takes it to Deaton after she’s dropped Stiles off at home.

“You got yourself _paralyzed by a Kanima_?!” Lydia rounds on him as soon as he’s through the front door.

“I didn’t do it on purpose.”

As Lydia frets, consequently attracting everyone that is still awake, Stiles doesn’t even have the energy to frown. Fighting the baddies does take a toll on you.

Allison sits at the top of the stairs in her pajamas and raises both her eyebrows.

“You don’t look very paralyzed to me.”

“You don’t look very asleep to me,” he mocks, climbing past her, “It’s past ten on a school night, go to bed.”

“I wanna know what happened.”

“Me, too,” Jackson agrees excitedly through a mouthful of toothpaste, sticking his head out of the bathroom.

Kira, who is hurriedly following Stiles up the stairs, strands of hair falling out of her messy bun, has the decency to look concerned. “Are you alright? Lydia already started research on the Kanima thing, it seems really dangerous. Did it hurt you?”

“Who cares about that; Derek fought a _snake shapeshifter and won_ , how awesome is that??”

Well, thanks a-fucking-lot.

 

+++

 

Over the next few days, Stiles doesn’t see or hear from Derek at all. He’s doesn’t fetch any kids, not even Cora, he doesn’t show up at the school parking lot, and a slightly awkward text Stiles sent the day after the Kanima incident went unanswered. 

By the time he leaves for the supermarket on Friday, Stiles is on the brink of frustration, even though he himself hasn’t even done anything wrong. This is all on Derek. He’s the one who’s ignoring Stiles, and the one who screwed up in the first place. If you can call buying somebody candy for their birthday screwing up. 

Still, Derek is acting like an idiot, that’s the important part here, even though Stiles is not entirely sure what’s even going on with the guy. He’s always liked keeping his secrets; Stiles knows this because Derek’s complete inability to communicate his thoughts and plans has earned them quite a few close calls in the supernatural business. He shudders to think of the state of Beacon Hills if Laura wasn’t there to sort her brother out every now and then. Stiles hopes she’s doing a good job this time, too, but Laura hasn’t said anything about Derek yet, and this _not knowing_ is what is driving Stiles round the-

“NO! Left!” Malia shrieks right then, abruptly pulling Stiles from his thoughts.  
The supermarket is packed this late in the afternoon, and Stiles has been fighting through narrow, stuffed aisles for half an hour now. Liam is in the back of the shopping cart, surrounded by groceries and hugging a huge watermelon that is nearly as big as the boy’s entire torso. Up front, holding onto the outside of the cart like a figurehead, Malia is sticking out one arm to direct them through the store at random.

“Right. Sorry, captain.”

Obediently, Stiles wheels the cart around and slouches through the cereals aisle. 

“Choco Pops,” Liam says appreciatively, watching Stiles stack box after box of cereal next to him into the cart. 

Breakfast for a dozen people, most of whom have a wolfish appetite, is always a challenge, so it becomes quite a tower.

Afterwards, they end up in the main corridor and Malia points to the left again.

“Oh no, young lady, we’re not going past the candies a third time. We need the icky green stuff, too,” Stiles says with a small grin and propels the cart forward towards the vegetables, making the kids shriek with joy.

He thought he didn’t put much force behind the shove, but of course the cart rolls away at top speed, causing a middle-aged lady to jump out of the way in alarm.

“Oh shit,” Stiles cursed, barreling after it. The cart veers off course, but before it can crash sideways into the nearby yoghurt display, a hand shoots out of nowhere and catches it. 

Stiles arrives seconds later, already preparing to profusely thank whoever just saved his food (and the kids, of course), but only then he actually perceives the person that is attached to the hand.

Ah, crap.

“Derek!” Malia cries happily, letting go of the cart in order to attach herself to the older werewolf’s leg instead.  
Liam waves hello with an enormous pack of toilet paper.

“Hi, there,” Stiles says after a beat, acting as though meeting Derek Hale in a grocery store of all places is a common occurrence and said Hale hasn’t been ignoring him all week. “Thanks for the rescue.”

He eyes the shopper basket of Derek’s arm, which so far contains only raw meat. Cliché.

“Uh, no problem,” Derek answers huskily, finally letting go of Stiles’ cart.  
He pats Malia’s head and looks anywhere but at Stiles. He seems a bit like a trapped animal, desperately looking for a way out of a dangerous situation, and Stiles realizes with glee that he’s got the upper hand in this.

“So… Looking for the Twizzlers?”

Derek’s eyes widen for a second, making him look positively terrified, until he schools his expression into a defiant one.

“I already know where those are.”

“Yeah, of course you do,” Stiles says, and wait, that was not supposed to come out so fond. 

Damn, it’s hard to tease Derek when he looks so harmless, what with the basket and the kid on his leg and… yup, no hair gel.  
He only ever realizes that he’s dreamily staring at Derek for too long when Malia reaches out to pull on his jacket.

“Cornflakes are crushing Liam,” she says solemnly.

Sure enough, when Stiles turns around, Liam and his melon are hardly visible beneath the collapsed tower of cereal boxes.

“Oh dear,” Stiles comments amusedly, digging up the grumpy-looking four-year-old.

“Cap’n Crunch is laughing at me,” Liam pouts, chucking the accused box to the other end of the cart. 

Behind them, Stiles hears a snort and glances over his shoulder to see Derek smiling at his shoes. 

“Cap’n Crunch is always laughing, silly,” Malia giggles, “But I am a better captain anyways.” 

With that, she lets go of Derek, hangs onto the side of the cart (pardon, ship), and begins to tell Liam an animated story about her crew, which apparently consists of Stiles, Liam and all their groceries. Liam’s melon seems to be the helmsman.

“Told you,” Derek whispers a little smugly, “She can talk just fine.”

“’Course she can,” Stiles grins, too proud to be offended. Also, Derek is still smiling, so it’s a win-win.

“Sooo… are we gonna talk about that super awkward elephant in the room?”

Yeah, blunt was not what Stiles was originally planning on going for, but… he just doesn’t have that brain-to-mouth filter. It’s definitely a problem and Stiles is already cringing.  
Derek is not, however, but looks straight on with a suddenly determined expression.

“Yes.”

“Uhhh… okay, then?”

“I ran away.”

“You did,” Stiles agrees, a little lost on this conversation. “And I don’t think I ever saw you run away from anything before. Especially not me.”

“It was stupid.”

“… I guess we can agree on that. Are you going somewhere with this?”

“Can you come over tomorrow night?”

“To the house? Why, is there another monster already? Here I was, thinking we’re having a good week-“

“No, not to the house. To my flat. You know where that is, right?”

“Yes? Why do I need to be at your flat?” Stiles asks, feeling more stupid with every question. 

He has no idea what Derek is aiming at, here. This time though, the other man hesitates.

“I… there is something at my flat that I need to give you.”

“Is it another box of Twizzlers?” Stiles teases gently, “Because I do dig those.”

“No,” Derek groans, “Will you stop with the Twizzlers? I’m starting to regret ever buying those. Just be there tomorrow, okay?”

Stiles smiles. “If it’s that important to you… is nine o’clock okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Derek goes, his ears going adorably red. 

This is rock bottom, people, Stiles is now officially calling ears adorable, what is _happening_.

Derek walks over to ruffle the kids’ hair and say goodbye, which they enthusiastically return, and walks away with his meat-basket and a last fleeting smile into Stiles’ direction.

Never before has grocery shopping been this much of an emotional roller coaster.

 

+++

 

Saturday morning, the Stilinski family wakes up the sound of rain pelting against the windows and heavy clouds darkening the sky outside.

“This is a disaster,” Lydia hisses over her waffles, “We can’t go hiking in this weather!”

The sheriff’s newspaper crinkles as he laughs. “Since when are you so fond of hiking, sweetheart?”

“I am not. And you, quit it,” she adds, watching Stiles snort into his muesli. Lydia continues, “But unfortunately, the werewolf fraction of this family is, and now we have to tell them we can’t go, after they all had to cancel their plans for Pack-Saturday.”

“They will handle the disappointment,” the sheriff says somberly, turning a page of his paper. 

Stiles only shrugs. “Pretty sure they don’t want to get soaked, either, Lyds.”

“We don’t,” Kira throws in, passing their end of the table on her way into the kitchen and yawning loudly.

Lydia grits her teeth in frustration. “Not my point. Guys, that is _not my point_!”

“Then what is?” Boyd asks, finally piping up from where he’s been silently sitting next to her.

“Have any of you thought of a plan B?? We made Jackson cancel Lacrosse training, Scott, Isaac and Erica aren’t going to go play soccer in the park, we postponed Malia’s counseling and Liam’s playdate, and Allison isn’t going to the mall with her friends,” Lydia counts off with a significant look on her face. “What are we going to do with _everybody_ stuck in the house?!”

Stiles and his dad look at each other.

“…That is a fair point.”

“I did not think of that.”

“Of course not,” Lydia deadpans, “After all, I’m supposed to do all the thinking, aren’t I? What are you guys going to do when I’m at the east coast next year?”

“Crash and burn,” Stiles says solemnly, steadfast ignoring the little pang he feels at hearing Lydia talk about college. He doesn’t even want to start thinking about his own applications.

Suddenly, Scott turns up at Lydia’s side with an angelical smile. “I have an idea.”

“Scotty, what did we say about eavesdropping? Just because you _can_ doesn’t mean you _should_.”

“Can we do a movie marathon?” Scott says excitedly, not listening to a word Lydia is saying, “This is the perfect weather for a movie marathon, you said so the last time I wanted to do one! And we can pull out the sofa and do a puppy pile! I love puppy piles! Please? Pretty please?”

The four oldest family members share a few sceptic glances. Before they can voice their opinions, however, Jackson darts over with a horrified expression.

“No, no! We’re not doing stupid kids’ movies all day, are we? And puppy piles? Because I don’t want to tell my team I had to skip our practice for a stupid family cuddle! And I’m not a puppy!”

Lydia clicks her tongue reproachfully, but it’s Boyd who has an answer to that.

“Bro, it’s middle school lacrosse,” he says mildly, “This one practice won’t make a difference.”

Allison, who is walking by with a Nutella toastie, sniggers cruelly. 

“Oh, burn.”

It’s been a week since her and Jackson’s infamous fight, but apparently time doesn’t heal all wounds. The one positive thing anyone could say about the situation is that in trying to ignore each other as best as possible, they stopped their constant bickering for the first time in months. In fact, they stopped talking to each other entirely, which then again is no less concerning.

“Enough,” Lydia says, directing her scowl specifically at Jackson. 

Though much more forgiving and with an expressive soft spot for the boy, she didn’t exactly hide whose side in the argument she was taking.

Jackson rolls his eyes, but holds up both hands in surrender. “Fine. But don’t expect me to enjoy any of these stupid, childish movies, I’m way too old for them-“

“ _You’re_ childish!” Scott interrupts disdainfully, crossing his arms.

“And nobody is ever too old for Disney,” the sheriff cuts in calmly. “Let’s do a Disney marathon. That’ll narrow down the possibilities… at least a little,” he adds, when Lydia gives him a look.

“Better than doing nothing,” Boyd encourages, abandoning his own waffles to go save Erica, who is once again climbing the kitchen cabinets for the fun of it.

“I’ll go and pull out the sofa,” Stiles says, leaving Lydia with no choice but to sigh and give her okay as well.

“Yes! Ally!” Scott shouts joyfully, dashing out of the room, “Ally, we’re doing a Disney marathon, can I sit next to you?”

~

“ _Tangled_.”

“Yes!”

“No.”

“Not again.”

“… _Frozen_?”

“Yes!”

“Over my dead body.”

“Uh, _Toy Story_!”

“Oh, good one.”

“Yes!”

“When hell freezes over.”

“Oh, come _on_!”

Stiles regrets his decision right about now. They’ve all migrated to the living room, rain is still noisily splattering against the windowpanes, and they just can’t decide on one goddamn Disney movie to start their marathon with. 

Mind you, it was already difficult enough to settle everybody on the sofa. Which is huge and extensible and everything, but still doesn’t stop them from the inevitable _who-sits-where_ discussion. Because awesome as pell-mell puppy piles may be, they’re not exactly ideal for movie-watching purposes.  
This time, they’ve settled on the following: Lydia is on the far left, with Jackson begrudgingly squeezed in between her and the armrest. Kira is next to Lydia with Liam on her lap, then Stiles right in the middle with Malia splayed on top of him. Then come Allison and Scott, cuddled up adorably, followed up by Boyd in the right corner, with Erica sitting between his legs. Isaac is spread across all of their legs, and the Sheriff, after taking one look at their pile-up, has chosen the armchair for himself.

“How about _Finding Nemo_ , can’t go wrong with that,” Boyd suggests wearily, rubbing a hand over his broad face.

“Boring,” Erica shoots him down, “I want _The Incredibles_.”

“Ooh, guys, what about _Zootopia_? It had such good reviews.”

“You know what, I’m voting for _Brave_ ,” Kira says pensively, “It’s practically Allison’s life story, we have to appreciate that.”

Jackson snorts derisively. “Veto. Out of principle,” he says, and earns an elbow into his ribs.

“No, no, no,” Scott calls out, standing up so he can tower over the rest of them. “This was my idea, so I get to choose, and I want _Meet the Robinsons_.”

“What? Why?”

“Because the Robinsons are an even crazier family than we are and I think that’s very comforting.”

After a single beat of stunned silence, everyone above the age of ten bursts into laughter.

“That is fantastic reasoning, Scotty,” Stiles chuckles, “I’m game.”

There is a chorus of “Me, too”s and Scott, who’d been looking puzzled for a second, pumps his fist and scurries off to find the right DVD.

~

They follow up with _Zootopia_ , because Lydia insists on its educational value. Both Liam and the sheriff fall asleep during _The Incredibles_ (Erica always gets her way) and by the time they start on _Tangled_ , most of the werewolves are practically vibrating with pent-up energy. They make it to the scene where Flynn Rider gets knocked out by the frying pan until Lydia snaps, having been hit in the face by Jackson’s flailing hand for the third time.

“Okay, that’s it,” she says briskly, heaving herself up. 

Stiles stops trying to keep Malia from climbing all over him just long enough to pause the movie, and everyone shifts their attention to Lydia, who just walks out.

“Uh, what…?” Kira begins uncertainly.

There’s the sound of the backdoor opening, the splashing of the heavy rain growing louder for a moment, and then Lydia’s voice resounds through the hallway.

“Everybody with the Furry Problem, get outside. Go, run, get soaking wet, I don’t care, just run.”

“Awesome,” Scott breathes and dashes out, the twins tearing after him.

Kira sighs, ties her hair up with a defeated expression and leads Malia and Liam into the hallway.

Jackson leans forward to look at Boyd, who shrugs, gets up and says, “A little rain ain’t gonna hurt.”

Allison follows with a grin, but turns around in the doorway to look condescendingly at Jackson, who hasn’t moved. 

“What, scared of getting a little wet?”

“In your dreams,” Jackson shoots back, and runs after her, nearly barreling into Lydia on their way out, judging by her annoyed scolding.

The sheriff awakes with a jolt and blinks at Stiles, who is the only one left and currently celebrates the first verbal exchange between Allison and Jackson in seven days.

“Where is everyone?”

“Outside, preparing to ruin the hardwood floor.”

“Better the hardwood than my patience.” Lydia returns to the living room and stretches with a yawn. 

“Does someone feel like cooking dinner? No? Great, pizza it is.”

~

“…Heeey, Antonio, it’s Stiles… Yeah, big order as usual… No, we’re not in a hurry, don’t stress… Right, so we’ll need two veggie pizzas, one peperoni and another one with mushrooms…uh, two Margheritas, one Hawaii… and, like, five meat lovers… yup, five, I’m pretty sure… No, not kidding this time either… yeah, that makes eleven, why are you still so surprised by that?... Because we’re eleven people, Antonio, you know that! … Yes, I realize that your pizzas are _very big_ , that’s why we’re regulars. I’m seriously gonna reconsider, though, if we gotta have this conversation every single time. Do you really want to lose such great customers, Antonio, do you? … That’s what I thought. Thanks, man, bye.”

~

“Oh, shit, I gotta get going, I’m gonna be late,” Stiles realizes two hours later with a start, and his stomach promptly plummets with excitement and dread equally. 

The whole family is still mingling about in the kitchen, most of them with wet hair, rendered more or less immobile after devouring Antonio’s huge, delicious pizzas from heaven that are absolutely worth the discussion.

“What? Go where?” Lydia asks nonplussed, looking up from the crumbs she was just sweeping up.

“Uh… Derek’s? Didn’t I tell you? He asked me to come over tonight.”

“In the supermarket,” Malia contributes from beneath table (this is becoming a bit of a habit). “He saved my ship.”

“Right…”

Keen to escape his sister, who looks like she’d like to ask a lot more questions right now, Stiles hurries around the kitchen, kissing the kids good night, not sure when he’ll get back.

“Don’t stay up too late, everyone!”

To his own surprise, Stiles becomes so nervous on the ride, he almost drives to the Hale house, out of habit, instead of heading downtown, where Derek’s flat is located. In the end, he’s half an hour late. He’s not particularly proud to say that he sits in the parked car for at least five minutes, either, trying to pluck up enough courage to enter the apartment building. It just gets more embarrassing when he realizes that Derek can smell him, or hear his heartbeat, and is most probably very aware of Stiles hiding in the Jeep like a fucking coward. That’s when Stiles decides to screw this, he’s not a _complete_ idiot, and he sprints up all four stories, ringing the doorbell before he can give it too much thought.

The door to the flat opens almost instantly. Damn werewolves.

Derek wears a worn-out grey sweater, which throws Stiles off for a moment because he’s not used to seeing Derek in something so soft.

“Hi,” Derek says, voice hoarse with disuse, and stands back to let Stiles inside.

The apartment is airy and strikingly modern, especially in comparison to the old-fashioned and mostly wooden interior of the Hale house. Derek bought it about a year ago, but Stiles has only been here once before, and that time he was too preoccupied with broken bones and the monster of the week to pay much attention to his surroundings.  
Right now, he’s kind of surprised to see that Derek to has actually put some effort into the place. Looking at Derek, you’d expect bare walls and the minimum of strictly necessary furniture, but the opposite is true.  
The big sofa in the living room is covered in throw pillows. There are forest-themed paintings on the wall above a chest of drawers with framed photographs on it, and the entire backside of the room is made up off a huge bookshelf filled to the bursting point.

Stiles is fairly impressed, but then he spots fairy lights around a small window and promptly bursts out laughing.

“Shut up,” Derek mumbles, cheeks coloring. “Cora put them up for Christmas.”

“It’s march, dude,” Stiles cackles, “They grow on you?”

“They calm me down,” Derek says defiantly, and stalks over to turn them on. 

Stiles has to admit that it looks kind of nice, the faint yellow glow illuminating a few potted plants on the windowsill, as well as Derek, who stands next to it with his arms crossed and a look on his face that dares Stiles to make fun of him.

He grins fondly. “Alright, alright, big guy, I’m not saying anything.”

“I once saw you wearing a tutu on Allison’s birthday party,” Derek mentions after a beat, apparently trying to make them even. 

Stiles laughs at the memory.

“And I looked dashing, didn’t I?”

“’Course you did,” Derek snorts, but he leaves the fairy lights be, and Stiles gets the familiar swooping feeling at making Derek smile. 

He grins and wanders around the room some more, reading book titles and looking at photographs, even though seeing the faded smiles of Derek’s mostly dead family makes his heart ache. He’s so engrossed in a recent picture of his own family (a bunch of the kids climbing the Hale house front porch) he doesn’t even notice Derek leaving the room, until he gets back and clears his throat.  
Stiles turs around and promptly has a plastic bag shoved in his face.

“What am I looking at?” he asks curiously, taking the bundle from Derek.

“A late birthday present?” Derek says, making it sound like a question.

“But weren’t the-“

“Do NOT say the T-word,” Derek demands intently, rubbing a hand over his face. “This is the actual-- just open it.”

“You’re not fond of gift wrap, are you?” Stiles tuts, faux-annoyed, and undoes the knot in the plastic bag. 

He sticks his hand in and comes up with a dark sweatshirt. It unfolds to reveal the ornate head of a wolf in front of a silhouetted moon, imprinted in silver.

“Because I’m ‘the boy who runs with wolves’?” Stiles jokes thickly, tracing the wolf with the tip of his finger.

“No, because you’re the _idiot_ who runs with wolves,” Derek corrects, lowering himself onto the sofa with a small smile.

Stiles laughs. “Now you ruined the moment… Why, though?”

“Because you’re an idiot with an entire family of werewolves.”

“No.” Stiles rolls his eyes and joins the older man, “No, I mean, this is the first birthday gift you’ve given me in nearly three years. Why?”

Derek shrugs. “I saw it in a store in Sacramento. Back in January. Made me think of you.”

“Aw, you’re being uncharacteristically sweet. If you had it since January, why do I get it now instead of, you know, _on my birthday_? 

Derek blushes. Really blushes; it’s not only his ears that go red, but his entire face. He looks a little like a bearded tomato. Stiles puts the sweatshirt to the side, and watches.

“I dunno. I didn’t want things to be weird.”

“You realize I’m not going to be satisfied with that flimsy excuse, right?”

“What do you want to hear, that I didn’t have the guts?”

Stiles blinks. “I did not know until now that I _really_ wanted to hear that.”

Derek shoves him lightly, and like the drama queen he is, Stiles topples over into the heap of pillows.

“Oh, look at this,” Stiles gushes a moment later, digging up a specific one. It’s a soft, white pillow with several colorful handprints on it. “Wasn’t this what the kids gave you for Christmas? I didn’t think you’d keep it.”

Derek scoffs, but looks relieved by the change of subject. “Of course I kept it, it’s adorable.”

“… I also never thought I’d hear the word ‘adorable’ out of your mouth.”

“You don’t seem to think a lot, then.”

“…That was so uncalled for, dude, I’m actually impressed.”

Derek smirks lightly. They lapse into silence, but it’s not uncomfortable. Stiles fiddles with the pillow, eyes wandering over the walls until he spots a laptop on the coffee table. They speak at the same time:

“Hey do you think we could-“

“So when do you have to-“

Stiles laughs. “Sorry, you first.”

“Uh, I was just wondering when you have to get back.”

“Ah, they’ll manage one evening without me. I was actually wondering if we could maybe watch something on your laptop? I haven’t seen last week’s episode of Criminal Minds,” Stiles suggests temptingly.

“Oh! Yes, of course, good idea, that’s… good,” Derek says and proceeds to clumsily set it up. 

They spend the entire episode debating its credibility, and right before the murderer is caught in an epic showdown, the _very second_ before, Stiles phone starts ringing loudly. They both jump and curse; Derek pauses the video while Stiles tries to find the blaring device amidst all the stupid throw pillows.

“Shit, sorry, I gotta take this one, it’s Lydia… She’d only call if there was an emergency…”

“I am so, so sorry,” is what Lydia opens with, sounding equally apologetic and tired. 

Stiles tries very hard not to groan. “What is it?”

“Isaac was having night terrors again. He’s been crying for half an hour now, I tried everything but he keeps asking for you. I am _so_ sorry, I don’t know what to do anymore.”

There is really no question: Lydia is desperate, Isaac needs him, and with one last look at Derek, who is nodding with wide eyes, Stiles is out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading :)
> 
> (Also, does anybody know how to add a link into my text? Because I'd really like to do that, but sadly, I am entirely clueless.)


	4. If You're Lost And Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, there.
> 
> This took me embarassingly long, but I've been having trouble with the plot of this chapter. Also, everything is so much more stressful now that university has started back up - surprise, surprise.
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the wait, I hope you still like the chapter - please feel free to let me know :)
> 
>  
> 
> Chapter title from Fun.'s Carry On.
> 
> Terribly unbeta'ed.

Stiles unlocks the front door with a frown on his face.

At a quarter to midnight, the house is mostly dark and quiet. There’s light coming from the kitchen, though, and when Stiles sticks his head through the doorway, he spots Kira sitting at the table. She’s bent over her books as usual, with headphones on that blare music so loudly that even Stiles’ human ears can pick up the faint beat fifteen feet over. That’s probably the reason she can’t hear him hiss her name several times. Stiles has to wave his arms madly until she spots him with a start.

“What the hell,” he mouths, vigorously tapping his wristwatch. 

Kira waves him off with a shake of her head. She points at her books, her headphones and then into the vague direction of the living room, makes some complicated faces that Stiles can’t read and goes back to her work.  
Alright then.

Stiles rolls his eyes and pulls the door shut. After all, it’s the weekend and Kira is old enough to know what she’s doing, he figures, feeling only slightly guilty. Now, the only source of light in the dark hallway is a faint glow coming from the living room, so Stiles heads there next, already pretty certain of what he’ll find.

Sure enough, Isaac is stretched out on the sofa with his head in Lydia’s lap, who is dutifully stroking his hair, even though she looks more asleep than awake.

“Hi,” Stiles says softly, walking over to sit on what little space is left on the sofa. 

Isaac immediately crawls over to squeeze onto Stiles’ lap instead, making himself as small as possible and hiding his face in the crook of the older boy’s neck. Must’ve been a really bad dream, Stiles thinks sadly, wrapping his arms around his little brother. 

Lydia gives him a grateful smile. “I’ll try to get Kira to bed,” she says quietly, leaning over to press a kiss to the top of Isaac’s head before leaving the room.

Stiles just stays where he is for a while, hugging Isaac close and letting the boy seek all the comfort he needs.

“I’m sorry you had to come home early,” Isaac mumbles sheepishly.

“Don’t be,” he murmurs calmly, “It’s not a big deal…”

“But Lydia said you were busy with Derek.”

Stiles has to suppress a groan. Fucking Lydia making innuendoes in front of their innocent baby brother, _come on_.

“I’m never too busy to come home when you need me, bud.”

Isaac doesn’t seem entirely comforted by that. “D’you think…” he hesitates, “D’you think Lydia is angry with me?”

Stiles is nonplussed. “What? Why would Lydia be angry with you?”

“Because I woke her up in the middle of the night but then made her get you.” 

The _duh_ goes unsaid and Stiles is impressed with the attitude Isaac can muster even when he’s so distraught.

“What, so, you think she’ll feel like you chose me over her? That’s ridiculous.”

“Maybe I hurt her feelings,” Isaac argues feebly, playing with a tiny hole in his sleep shirt.

“Lydia’s definitely not angry with you,” Stiles promises fondly, “She knows we have a deal that’ll help you and all she wants is for you to feel better when you have a nightmare.”

Isaac hums noncommittally.

“…How bad was it tonight?” Stiles asks gently.

“Pretty bad,” Isaac says in a constricted voice.

“That sucks, buddy. D’you wanna talk about it?”

“No,” Isaac says and suddenly sounds as though he’s about to cry, “I want Erica.”

“She’s just upstairs, kiddo. D’you wanna sleep in her bed tonight? I’ll go talk to her if you want, we do have that deal, after all.”

“…Yeah.”

“Okay.” Stiles gets on his feet with Isaac clinging to him like a Koala and it takes a little conviction to get him to let go.

“Listen, buddy,” Stiles says, cupping Isaac’s face once he’s back on his own two feet, “Why don’t you go stay with Lydia while I talk to Erica, huh? You can tell her thanks for looking after you until I got here, it’ll make you feel better.”

“Alright,” Isaac agrees meekly, taking Stiles’ hand and not letting go until they reach the stairs. He scuttles off, then, and slips into the kitchen. 

Stiles’ heart aches a little as he climbs upstairs. Moments like these always remind him of how young most of his little brothers and sisters still are, and how much pain they already had to go through. Erica and Isaac were only toddlers when their biological father abused them, who was disgusted with their kind and basically tried to beat it out of them. The twins claim to remember only bits and pieces, but the emotional trauma has left some scars. Isaac has night terrors he never talks about at least once a week and reacts exceptionally badly to the smallest hints of physical violence. Erica, on the other hand, turned fear into power and is surely the most badass ten-year-old girl ever, despite the frequent panic attacks.

 

To nobody’s surprise, Erica is wide awake in her bed when Stiles enters the twin’s room and closes the door behind himself. She turns her head to the door, blinking her big eyes at Stiles. With a werewolf hearing like hers, she’s not exactly going to sleep through her brother having nightmares in the bed right next to hers, no matter what Isaac talks himself into believing.

“Can he sleep with you?” Stiles whispers, kneeling down next to the head of Erica’s bed. He’s gonna have to wait a few minutes to make sure Isaac buys it.

“Duh,” Erica yawns. “… he sounded really terrified,” she says quietly, staring at the ceiling. “It got so bad, I was about to climb into his bed myself. But then he woke up and ran out to get Lydia…”

“He’s just embarrassed, you know that.”

Erica scoffs. “It’s not like I don’t have panic attacks.”

“I know, love, I know. But you’re a really good sister. I’m proud of you.”

“I hate it when he has these dreams.”

“Me, too.”

Erica is silent for a minute. “Is Derek okay?”

“Uh, yeah,” Stiles says, startled, “Yeah, he gave me a really cool sweatshirt for my birthday. Now that I think of it, I left it at his house, damnit…”

“Your birthday was two weeks ago,” Erica frowns.

“So?”

“Nothing, just saying… do you think it’s been long enough yet, I really want to go back to sleep.”

“You realize we all could get much more sleep if you and Isaac just _admitted_ to each other that you _want_ to help each other out. I mean, you end up sleeping in one bed anyways, every single time. Why the charade?”

“You don’t get it,” Erica groans into her hands with the kind of utmost frustration only kids can manage. “That’s just not how it works, okay?”

“But why?” Stiles despairs, “I mean I kind of get Isaac not wanting to ask you for comfort. That’s one thing. But I don’t get why you can’t offer it.”

Erica gives him a sad kind of smile and the look in her eyes is way too mature for a girl her age when she says, “To Isaac, me offering would be worse than him asking.”

“Oh, screw that,” Stiles replies, getting to his feet gracelessly, “The boy is only ten, I’m pretty sure he’s not supposed to be so… so…”

“Dumb?” Erica suggests with a small smirk, and rolls onto her side. “Just send him back in here, will you?”

Stiles salutes and steps out into the hallway. “Isaac,” he whispers, loud enough for the boy to hear downstairs but not loud enough to wake up all the other werewolf kids. “All clear.”

All but five seconds later, Isaac darts up the stairs. He doesn’t look at Stiles as he disappears into his room, but before the door falls shut, he mumbles a “Thanks” into Stiles’ vague direction.

Stiles is sure that they’ll wake up tomorrow all cuddled up and proceed to ignore each other all morning. Sometimes, he thinks he’ll never understand these kids.  
And then he gets a little scared, because he’s only eighteen himself and that’s probably not the kind of thing normal eighteen-year-olds worry about.

 

When he gets back down to the kitchen, Lydia is in Kira’s former chair. There’s an open tub of Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough on the table in front of her. Wordlessly, she holds out a second spoon.

“Kira went to bed?”

“Uh huh.”

They eat ice cream in silence for a while.

“So what’s that deal you and Isaac have going on?”

Stiles grunts. “Just that every time Isaac has a nightmare like that, I’ll go bribe Erica into letting him sleep in her bed and nobody ever talks about it again.”

Lydia pulls a face. “Kind of ridiculous he won’t just ask her himself right away, isn’t it? When we were kids and snuck into each other’s beds, we didn’t even bother to ask first.”

“It’s even more ridiculous when you consider the deal I’ve got with _Erica_ at the same time,” Stiles says with a small smile, “Which entails that whenever Isaac’s got a nightmare like this, I’ll _pretend_ to bribe Erica, so she can _let_ Isaac sleep in her bed because she wants to, and nobody ever talks about it again.”

Lydia’s eyes widen. “I’m not sure whether I should laugh or cry. How come all the kids in this family are so extremely afraid of embarrassing themselves in front of each other?”

“I dunno, maybe it’s a werewolf thing. ‘Don’t show any weaknesses’ and all that jazz.”

“Loving and taking care of each other is not a weakness.”

“Of course not,” Stiles sighs, “Maybe it’s just the beginning of puberty when absolutely everything is embarrassing, or maybe they’re all very fond of their dignity-“

“But we are a family,” Lydia insists, sticking her spoon into the tub a little aggressively, “They are supposed to be able to be themselves and show their feelings and not be ashamed!”

“I’m afraid that’s wishful thinking, Lyds,” Stiles says wearily, “Let’s just be grateful, it could be a lot worse. Look at the twins, at least they do take care of each other, who cares if it’s behind each other’s backs.”

“I care,” Lydia says stubbornly, but she drops it. “Nevermind. Sorry again for interrupting your date. How was it, anyways?”

She puts on this devilish smirk that Stiles dreads, and he is definitely too tired for this shit.

“It was not a date,” he says nevertheless, _because_. It wasn’t a date.  
It wasn’t.

“You keep telling yourself that, honey,” Lydia says sweetly.

“Lyds, seriously, we didn’t even have dinner or anything. It wasn’t a date.”

“But you wish it was.”

“No, I don’t, shut up.”

Lydia doesn’t even bother to roll her eyes.

Stiles shrugs sheepishly. “He gave me a hoodie. As a late birthday present. He said he’s had it for a while, but didn’t have the guts to give it to me.”

“Oh my god,” Lydia gushes with delight, “that is so sweet, and I never would’ve thought I’d ever say that about Derek. Show me!”

“I can’t, I left it on his sofa.” 

“Ooh, on his sofa, huh?” Lydia says gleefully. “What else did you leave on Derek’s sofa?”

“Oh my god, I hate you.” Stiles drops his head onto folded arms on the table and leaves it there.

Lydia tuts. “Of course you don’t.”

“… Of course I don’t.”

“I just want to make sure it went okay, you know?” she says, starting to pet Stiles’ hair the way he likes. “As your concerned and loving sister, I feel like I have to check that he treats you right, doesn’t take advantage of you… that kind of thing.”

“You’re crazy,” Stiles deadpans, voice muffled. “All of that is crazy and I can see right through it. Also, I’m perfectly able to look out for myself. And I don’t think Derek is able to take advantage of anybody… _that way_. I’ve determined that he’s actually a big marshmallow on the inside,” he elaborates, waving a hand around over his head in a dismissive way. 

He can’t see Lydia’s face, but she makes a sound like the squeak of a mouse.

“But what did you _do_??” she bursts out after a beat, apparently unable to let it go. 

Stiles sighs. “I arrived, I had a look at his place, which is surprisingly nice, might I add, he gave me the present, we talked – you were wrong, by the way, Derek does have a sense of humor – then we watched Criminal Minds and then you called, _right_ before they would have caught the killer. Happy?”

Lydia doesn’t answer for so long, Stiles finally lifts his head a little and squints at her. She’s inspecting her nails with a frowny face.

“What?”

“Criminal Minds, really?” Lydia says then, looking distinctly judgmental. “Don’t you guys have enough violence in your lives already?”

“Well, I can’t speak for Derek, but I’m not exactly short on Disney movies either, am I? Also, you _love_ Criminal Minds, because you always know who the murderer is first!”

“I’m the Reed of this family,” Lydia dismisses loftily, “but I was actually thinking that, as great as the show undoubtedly is, it’s not exactly first date material, is it?”

Stiles stares her down incredulously. “Lydia, I swear to god – _it wasn’t a date_!”

“Sure thing, honey,” she agrees sweetly, and entirely unconvincingly, but at least she seems satisfied with the amount of information Stiles has given her, and drops it. Instead, she gets up and wanders over to the dresser, grabbing a stack of paper. Her tiredness from before seems to be forgotten.

“This is the collected research on the Kanima,” she informs him and the paper drops onto the table with a significant thud. “Have you looked through it yet? Laura sent me the according pages of the bestiary by mail, so those are in there as well…”

“You don’t expect me to read all of that right now, do you? That’s, like, at least fifty pages.”

“Sixty-three,” Lydia sniffs haughtily, “Which I have already read. You just need to listen to my summary of the important bits.”

Stiles grins. “Gladly.”

“Basically, a Kanima is a lizard-like shapeshifter and a mutation of the werewolf gene, which means that the original bite was partially unsuccessful due to the victims personality or past, turning them into a Kanima rather than a werewolf – although just like the werewolf, the Kanima is most powerful around the full moon. As you already experienced, the tip of a Kanima’s tail, as well as its claws, secrete a specific venom that paralyses its victim immediately. The most important _behavioral_ difference, however, is that the Kanima doesn’t look for a pack, but for a master, someone who controls and commands it. The bestiary cites the story of a South American priest who used a Kanima to get rid of all the murderers in his town, but I don’t suppose that the master of our particular specimen had a particularly good cause in mind.”

“Probably not…” Stiles agrees slowly, trying to process all the information his sister has just thrown at him. “Um… so… you’re saying that somebody else told the Kanima to kill that jogger, and to attack us in the Preserve?”

“I would assume it. Deaton compared the substance in the victims neck wound with the dead Kanima’s venom, which are identical of course, so we can at least determine it as the perpetrator and dad can close the case.”

“ _”The perpetrator was determined to be a shapeshifting lizard, who paralyzed the victim with the venom in its tail and then proceeded to tore the helpless victim’s abdomen apart with its claws,”_ ” Stiles intones dully. “Yeah, I can totally see that report happening.”

Lydia, who is idly leafing through her research, doesn’t acknowledge any of this. She pulls a single sheet from the paper, which shows a rather crude sketch of what must be a Kanima, with another figure standing commandingly over it. 

“Somebody _made_ it kill… but why… why now… and here,” Lydia muses slowly, staring at the picture.

“Is it a coincidence?” Stiles wonders aloud, “The two Omegas and now the Kanima?”

“Omegas don’t have a master, they can’t be controlled.”

“But they’ve been poisoned into madness, haven’t they? Somebody must have done that, too.”

“Yeah,” Lydia says grimly, “and I don’t believe in coincidences.”

~

Stiles doesn’t make it to bed until after one a.m. He and Lydia both regret it in the morning, when Scott and Malia barge into their room at eight o’clock sharp. Just like every weekend.  
Malia wanders over to Lydia’s bed, the way she rubs her eyes indicating that she’s still rather sleepy. Lydia lifts up her blanket to let Malia crawl into bed with her, throws an arm around the little girl, and they both go back to slumber. Stiles is not as lucky.

“Stiles!!” Scott stage-whispers, patting the pillow next to Stiles’ face excitedly. “I dreamed about dinosaurs! It was so awesome! I flew on a Pte-ro-dac-ty-lus and you were there, too, and a T-Rex ate you!” 

“Sounds great, buddy,” Stiles mumbles, not really listening. Scott has been talking about dinosaurs a lot lately. He does notice a prominent lack of other voices, though. “Scotty, where are the twins? Where’s Liam?”

“Liam went to Daddy, I think,” Scott answers dutifully, “And, um, Isaac and Erica are cuddling with each other, so… still sleeping.” He shrugs with a slight air of puzzlement regarding the twins’ unusual sleeping manners, and promptly proceeds to more important issues: “Can you make breakfast, now, Stiles? I’m really hungry, and when I was riding the Pte-ro-dac-ty-lus I was thinking about pancakes and-“

“Scott, buddy, I was up real late,” Stiles interrupts gently, “do you think you can hold on for half an hour? Come cuddle with me, huh?”

Scott’s face splits into a sunny smile.

 

Later, they find Kira back at the kitchen table, her head buried in her arms, surrounded by the usual breakfast chaos.

“I don’t understand,” she groans, words hardly intelligible through the hoodie she seems to have pulled on right over her pajamas, “how they can all be up so damn early. Nothing is holy to these children,” she adds dramatically, emerging briefly to glare at Stiles, as though it’s somehow his fault that the kids are early risers.

Needless to say, Kira is not a morning person. 

The sheriff chuckles. He’s off work this Sunday, blessedly, and currently making the badly craved pancakes at the stove, closely watched by Scott. Liam is curled up on a chair, munching on a bit of banana and watching the twins set the table. Isaac and Erica are carefully avoiding each other’s eyes, and Lydia rolls her eyes at them. Boyd is reading the newspaper, completely unperturbed by everything that’s happening around him. He does glance under the table every now and then, though, most probably checking on Malia. The loud noise this particular morning is primarily composed of the radio, nicely accentuated by Jackson and Allison bickering loudly all across the length of the table.

“You’re talking to each other again!” Stiles remarks happily, pulling out the chair next to Jackson.

“I’m not talking to her!”

“So what it is you’re doing, then?” Allison wonders mockingly, “Talking to yourself?”

“ _You_ started!” Jackson snaps, “ _You_ told me to shut up!”

“Only because you were blasting your dumb music in our room while I was trying to sleep!”

“You would’ve had to get up anyway.”

“Says who? Maybe I would’ve liked to sleep in for once!”

“Then you would have missed breakfast,” Jackson says slowly and condescendingly, which always works to rile Allison up.

“What if I wanted to miss breakfast?!”

“Don’t be stupid, you never miss breakfast. I bet, if I hadn’t woken you up, you would just be angry at me for _making_ you miss breakfast or some shit. You always find a reason to be angry.”

Allison seethes, “That would be because you always find a reason to be an annoying douchebag,” and throws a bread roll at Jackson’s head. The boy doesn’t even flinch.

“Because throwing food at someone is not at all annoying.”

“Shut up,” Allison says, heartfelt. She gets up and walks around the table to collect her roll. “Let’s not forget that you are the asshole here, okay, and I have every right to be angry, even Lydia said so!”

“Do not pull me into this right now,” Lydia says tiredly, pouring herself an enormous cup of coffee.

“It’s been a week,” Jackson says curtly, but he looks extremely uncomfortable. “Get over it. I said I was sorry.”

“I don’t care,” Allison mutters with furrowed eyebrows, “You meant what you said.”

“You know full well I didn’t, you’re just using this as an excuse to have a go at me over and over again! How long do you want to hold it against me??”

“As long as I want to.”

“Twerp.”

“Dickhead!”

“That’s it,” a voice says loudly, but to Stiles’ surprise it’s not Lydia, it’s his dad, sounding absolutely done. “I’ve had enough. You’re bringing everybody down with your endless fighting and the way you treat and talk to each other is intolerable. You sort this out right now.”

Allison throws her hands up in annoyance and drops into a nearby chair, but Jackson jumps up, facing the sheriff head on. 

“You can’t _make_ us.”

The sheriff laughs bitterly. “Yes, I can. You either start getting along, or I’ll ground you again and cut you’re allowance.”

“What? You can’t do that, _what for_?”

“Excessive fighting,” the sheriff shrugs, “Now say sorry and shake hands.”

“We’re not in kindergarten,” Jackson hisses resentfully, while Allison nods. “And we’re old enough to sort things out by ourselves. We don’t need you to do it for us.”

“Right,” Allison agrees, and comes to stand next to her brother, arms crossed. “Sorry, dad, but this is our business.”

“C’mon, Ally, we’re eating in the living room.” Jackson goes to grab both their plates, waiting for his sister to add a pancake to each, and then they leave the room with their noses in the air.

“What the hell just happened?” Boyd asks gravely.

Everybody, even Kira, stares at the sheriff, who shrugs again and says, “The easiest way to unite two people is by giving them a common enemy.”

“Cheers,” Lydia comments and downs her coffee. 

 

+++

 

Two days later, on Tuesday evening, Stiles is doing laundry with Kira. 

“Dad’s taking time off on Saturday,” he informs her conversationally, trying to match up a downright mountain of single black socks (he’s concluded that socks are an invention of the devil). “He wants to do a barbecue because the weather is supposed to be really nice this weekend.”

Kira is plainly not listening to a word he’s saying, folding kids’ t-shirts while muttering mathematical equations under her breath, her eyes going out of focus every now and then.  
Stiles rolls his eyes good-naturedly and keeps her from adding Liam’s shirt to Malia’s pile. Just as Jackson comes barging in, demanding to know where his Lacrosse uniform has ended up, Stiles’ phone starts buzzing in the pocket of his jeans. The caller ID indicates Lydia, which is concerning since she’s supposed to be on stake-out duty tonight. 

He holds up a hand to stop the two teenagers bickering about disappearing sportswear, and answers with an urgent, “Lydia, what’s wrong?”

The voice on the other end of the line huffs. “It’s Laura, and before you freak out on me; no, Lydia is not hurt. She just doesn’t have the voice to talk to you right now.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Stiles asks flatly, forcing his pulse to slow down after it was momentarily skyrocketing.

Laura doesn’t beat around the bush. “We, that is to say, Lydia, just stopped a fucking _beta_ werewolf from killing an old dude and his Rottweiler. You know, I knew she was a banshee and all, but your sister just screamed a full grown werewolf into temporary unconsciousness.” She sounds genuinely impressed.

Stiles lowers himself weakly onto the sock mountain, before jumping back up due to the lingering wetness. 

“Her voice is her weapon,” he comments, rubbing the back of his pants as Jackson and Kira laugh.

“Yeah, well, now her voice is gone,” Laura grumbles. “She shoved me behind a tree, but the force of her scream still blew me off my feet, can you believe it…” 

There’s an air of disgruntlement in her voice, and Stiles suspects that Laura is generally not used to being pushed out of the way. She probably prefers beating up the bad guys herself.

“Be glad she didn’t burst your eardrum, it’s happened to me before… wait a moment, did you say _beta_ werewolf?!”

“Positive,” Laura confirms, back to business, “He doesn’t seem to be poisoned either, I can’t smell any wolfsbane and he seemed quite sane when he jumped the old man. Anyways, we’ve tied him up and I’m going to take him home for interrogation, we’ll see what he has to say. I’m gonna need you to come fetch Lydia and also tell the old guy some story. He’s still out cold. The dog is going berserk, though.”

“He fainted? Oh my god, did you check if he’s alright?”

“Yeah, calm down, Lydia’s looking after him. He’s, like, ancient, but sturdy enough I guess… Lydia’s nodding, he’ll be fine. Are you coming, then?”

“Of course I am, where are you?”

“Hell if I know, somewhere in the middle of the preserve. I’ll get Lydia to text you the coordinates.”

Stiles hangs up with a nod, leaves an indignant Jackson in charge of Mount Sock, and sprints to his jeep. Lydia is never in a good mood after having to temporarily sacrifice her voice to knocking out some delinquent; he’s not going to let her wait in the dark forest with a passed-out grandpa and a crazy Rottweiler on top of it.

 

“Somewhere in the middle of the preserve” was quite right, and Stiles has to leave the Jeep by the edge of the woods (next to the haphazardly parked Camero - all Stiles can think is that Derek surely wouldn’t approve of this way of handling his precious car) and fight his way through trees and undergrowth for ten minutes until he reaches the tiny clearing.

“Finally,” Lydia croaks hoarsely, sitting crossed-legged next to the limp body of a truly very old man. 

A huge, dangerous looking Rottweiler is crouching near his owner, apparently scared into submission by Laura, who is, to Stiles’ surprise, still around. She’s leaning against a nearby tree with an air of great boredom; a lean, middle-aged and tightly bound man is lying at her feet. He’s still got his fangs on show, spitting an impressive array of curse words into the night.

“We didn’t have anything to gag this piece of scum with,” Laura informs him, lazily prodding the werewolf with the tip of her feet.

“I thought you’d be long gone by now.”

“I couldn’t leave your mute and defenseless sister out here on her own, could I? But now that you’re here, I’ll be on my way.” Laura bends down to drag her captive to his feet. “We’ll let you guys know if he’s had anything important to say.”

With that, the pair of them make their way back into the direction of the cars, accompanied by the guys continuous cursing and Laura’s snappish replies.

Stiles drops to the ground next to Lydia.

“You didn’t really scream with this dude around, did you? He’s so old, I’m surprised it didn’t kill him!”

“He’d already fainted by then,” Lydia whispers, affronted. “Must’ve been the crazy shapeshifter trying to eat his…” Her voice gets more silent with every word until it breaks off entirely. She gives an unhappy huff and waves it off.

 

The huge dog starts to regain his confidence with every yard Laura puts between them. Luckily for everyone involved, the old guy begins to stir and groan before his companion can pounce on Lydia and Stiles, who unfortunately left his bat in the car.

It takes all of Stiles’ persuasiveness to convince a very confused “Mr. Peter Smith, hello, please do call me Pete, my dears, and this is Oscar,” that the monster he’d reportedly been attacked by must have sprung from his fantasy.

“Maybe you saw a mountain lion, Pete,” Stiles suggests gently, as they shuffle through the scrub, back to the Jeep, Oscar trotting innocently along in their wake. “There are a lot of those around here. Or maybe you dreamed it. You’ve been out cold for quite a while, there.”

“How did you and Oscar end up in the middle of the forest?” Lydia adds in a whisper, which Stiles has to repeat loudly for old Pete to understand.

“Oh, I was looking for Oscar, wasn’t I, dear? He must have smelled a squirrel or some other little animal, and just whooshed away after it. I followed him to the clearing back there, didn’t I, and that’s where we saw this… creature.” The old man shudders.

“Mountain lion,” Stiles supplies hastily.

“Right you are, young man, the mountain lion… well, I’m not the youngest fellow anymore, am I? Gave me quite the shock there, I assume.”

“Understandably,” Lydia croaks sympathetically, but Pete doesn’t seem to have heard her. 

They drop the old man and ~~his dog from hell~~ Oscar off at home, making sure he’s alright and continuously assuring that they did not, in fact, see a fanged, hairless man-wolf anyway near where they found him.

“Thank god he didn’t ask why _we_ were in the middle of the woods at ten in the night to find him,” Lydia whispers as they’re speeding towards their own house, rubbing her throat moodily. 

“Ah, nonsense,” Stiles dismisses with grin, “we would have simply been Hansel and Gretel looking for breadcrumbs.” 

“You’re not funny.”

“Derek would have laughed.”

“Stiles, honey, not even Derek is smitten enough with you to laugh at that feeble excuse of a joke.”

“You’re mean when your throat is sore. Also, Derek is _not_ smitten with me, but can we still pretend this conversation never happened?”

“Gladly.”

 

+++

 

Stiles gets the call two days later, at half past ten in the evening. He’s exhausted, to say the least, having spent an hour and a half trying to get Liam to go to sleep. The four-year-old is sweet enough most of the time, but lately he’s developed a bit of an aversion against his bed. Which is definitely not something Stiles can relate to at all, because right now, a bed seems like the most heavenly place on earth. (Actually, any flat, reasonably soft surface would do, Stiles is not picky.)

“This is the second time this week you’re blessing me something as mundane as a phone call, Laura Hale,” Stiles jokes feebly, trying not to let on how tired he is. “You’ll be losing all your mystery soon.”

Laura elects to ignores this and comes, as always, straight to the point. “Cut the shit, Stilinski, I’ve got news about our situation-“

“Do you mean the beta-werewolf situation or the general shit-is-going-down situation?” Stiles interrupts, unable to stop himself.

“Both,” Laura clarifies, “The scumbag’s name is Chester Brown, which is an incredibly stupid name for a murderous werewolf, if you ask me. He’s from Oregon, or so he says, and after two nights of… intensive persuasion, he just told us he was _paid_ to wreak havoc in Beacon Hills.”

“Come again?!”

“Paid, Stilinski. As in, hired for random murder.”

“Did he say who paid him??”

“No,” Laura says, a little too quickly for Stiles’ liking. “He said he never saw their face, never knew their name… Looks like someone’s been poisoning Omegas, controlling Kanimas, hiring Betas… Can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

“One’s an incident, two’s a coincidence, three’s a pattern,” Stiles recites automatically, rubbing a weary hand over his face. 

This is not good news at all. In fact, this sounds like it could develop into a serious, quick-action-requiring, crap-we’re-all-gonna-die kind of _problem_. And while Stiles definitely has enough, most annoying problems of his own, those are surely the worst.

“Stiles,” Laura pipes up after a stretch of silence, sounding uncharacteristically worried, “If three is a pattern… What’s four?”

 

+++

 

This weekend marks the official beginning of spring as you’d imagine it. The sky is a clear, forget-me-not blue, with not a single cloud in sight and the sun shining brightly, boosting the temperature. The Stilinski pack spends the whole day out in their enormous backyard, occasionally doing homework on the porch, but mostly just running around and playing (or, in Lydia’s case, sunbathing in a deck chair).  
The sheriff comes home in the early afternoon, just as promised, and is greeted enthusiastically by all the kids. 

“Happy to see Dad, are you?” Stiles teases fondly, ruffling Jackson’s hair after the boy has finished hugging their father hello. 

“Only because he brought food,” Jackson retorts with red cheeks, bends down to pull a pack of burger buns out of one of the many bags and forcefully chucks it at Stiles, who only just catches it – before it hits him in the face – with a mock-scandalized yelp.

“Guys!” the sheriff calls, as Stiles begins to chase Jackson around the kitchen, swatting at him with the bun package. “Guys, I thought we were clear on this! No playing with the food – why am I even bothering?” he asks Lydia with an exasperated laugh.

“Hope dies last,” Lydia shrugs, reaching for the vegetables, “Put the meat into the fridge, will you, before it goes bad in this heat.”

 

They’re planning a big celebratory barbeque for the evening, unearthing both their ancient, dusty grills from the basement in order to fit all the stuff the sheriff has bought on his way home onto them. To be fair, nobody is entirely sure what they are supposed to be celebrating, so everyone just came up with a reason of their own: Jackson won his first official lacrosse match the day before, which he doesn’t fail to mention about once every hour, Erica is ecstatic to finally be allowed to wear her favorite dress without tights, and Stiles is simply celebrating the fact that nobody died this week. Small victories.

Boyd insists on inviting Cora over for dinner (and Boyd rarely insists on anything, so it’s an easy deal), which then causes all the younger kids to demand they invite Laura as well (who, in their opinion, is the coolest person to ever grace the earth, which is not something Stiles can very well argue with). The sheriff simply decides on extending an invitation to all three Hales; it’s not like they don’t have enough food to feed a small army. Stiles is eternally grateful for that development, because he doesn’t think he’d want to see Lydia’s face had he brought up Derek himself.

He spends an hour directing everybody around, as they build a mismatched table long enough to fit fifteen people, prepare burgers and chicken skewers and put up a few leftover lampions because Allison insists. It’s reasonably chaotic, and Stiles ends up trying to get the stupid charcoal to smolder for twenty minutes. By the time the grills finally work and the sheriff has taken position behind them (proudly wearing his “King of the Grill” apron), Stiles is covered in sweat and coal dust. 

Obviously, this is when the doorbell rings. Everybody else is terribly busy, of course, so Stiles ends up sprinting to the front of the house, swearing under his breath and wiping his face. (The back of his hand comes back black with soot. Figures.)

Given the warm weather, the three Hales have blessedly forgone their usual leather attire, but Stiles still feels self-conscious when Cora gives him a customary once-over, then slips past him with a small smirk on her face.

“Ah,” Laura grins broadly, “Looks promising.”

She looks from Stiles to Derek when she doesn’t get any reaction, eyebrows rising and lips curling. 

“I’ll follow the smell of food, shall I?” she says simply, patting Stiles on the shoulder before disappearing into the house.

A few seconds pass, which Stiles and Derek spend awkwardly staring at each other, until delighted shrieks of “Laura!” drift over from the backdoor and make Derek jump.

“Um. Hello. You look…”

“Sooty, yes,” Stiles finishes for him, “The grill and I won’t be friends any time soon.”

Encouraged by the smile Derek cracks at that, Stiles ushers him into the house and lets the door fall shut behind him.

“Thanks for the invitation,” Derek blurts out suddenly, as though he’d planned to say it and nearly forgot.

“’Course, dude. Uh, most of them are in the backyard, as you can hear, just pass right through… I’ll just go wash up,” Stiles says, starting towards the stairs with an apologetic grin. 

But even when Stiles is already halfway upstairs, Derek hasn’t moved, lingering in the entryway as though unsure what to do with himself. Stiles reminds himself that Derek is not exactly a pro at social interaction, and even though he gets on greatly with the kids… all of them at once plus Lydia and the sheriff has to be a little overwhelming.

“Hey,” he tells Derek gently, “do me a favor and take Malia out with you? She’s probably still hiding under the kitchen table. You might have a good shot at coaxing her out, what with how much she likes you.” 

Derek looks taken aback for a moment, but then a grateful smile lights up his features, making him look quite entrancing, and hell, Stiles _really_ needs to get a grip on himself, Jesus. 

“Right,” he nods and dashes up the stairs, keeping himself from watching Derek be even cuter with Malia. He’s got to somehow preserve his dignity. Or, he thinks, glimpsing at his soot-covered reflection in the bathroom mirror, what’s left of it anyways.

 

Stiles is the last one to reach the back porch. He’d been temporarily congratulating himself because Derek wasn’t lurking in the kitchen anymore, apparently having made it outside on his own, which, great. It’s not like there’s anything to be afraid of about his family… then again, once Stiles has stepped out into the sunlit backyard, he finds he might have to reconsider. Lydia, Kira, Allison and Erica are grouped around an apprehensive-looking Derek, all four girls with identical, gleeful smirks on their faces.

_Abort mission_ , Stiles thinks nonsensically, torn between going over to save Derek and fleeing back into the house. United, his sisters are a force to be reckoned with.

“Sti-hiiiles,” Erica singsongs, “Derek brought you something!” She plucks a bundle out of Derek’s arm and waves it over her head so Stiles can see. It’s the sweater with the wolf on the front which he’d forgotten at Derek’s place last week.

“Oh,” he says dumbly, “Uh, thanks.”

“I wanted to take it on Monday night, but I forgot,” Derek says gruffly, looking deeply regretful.

“So he brought it with him tonight,” Lydia muses airily, “Thoughtful, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, otherwise we’d have probably never gotten to see it,” Allison says shrewdly, winking.

“And it’s so pretty,” Kira adds brightly. She takes the garment from Erica and throws it to Stiles. “Put it on for us, will you?”

“You’re evil,” Stiles says, catching it and pointing at his sisters. “You’re all evil. Derek, just ignore them. They get a kick out of making people uncomfortable, they’re mean like that.”

He ignores the four mock-offended gasps that follow his statement and goes to drag Derek along and off the porch. He catches Lydia’s eye over his shoulder, trying to look indignant, but predictably the girls just burst into laughter. They’re _evil_.

 

Dinner is a rowdy affair. It seems to go on forever; the sheriff grilling heap after heap of meat, the kids taking a break from eating every so often, going on noisy rampages through their spacious backyard, and everyone switching seats at leisure.

Stiles finds himself next to Derek more often than not. The werewolf seems to enjoy himself well enough, devouring burger after burger and laughing at the children’s (and Stiles’) antics, but there is a slight uncertainty in the way he holds himself, the way he talks only when addressed.

“All right?” Stiles asks quietly, passing Derek on his way to the salad and catching the other man’s expression, which can only be described as lost.

“Yeah,” Derek nods slowly. “This is nice.”

“But?”

“Nothing. It just… reminds me, you know?” He glances at the tangle of limbs in the nearby grass that is Scott and Isaac, rolling around in play-fight. “Of how it used to be.”

Stiles swallows heavily. “Did you do these kinds of things with your family?”

“Every month around the full moon. We used to have a campfire and stuff. Cora always ate so many S’mores she’d end up puking.”

Stiles can’t help snorting at that, glad that Derek finds something funny among the hurtful memories.

“Well, it’s lucky we don’t have those, then.”

 

Much later, once the sun starts to sink so low it touches the treetops of the nearby woods, casting long shadows across the backyard, Boyd and Cora put down their cutlery.

“You hear anything suspicious, call immediately, alright?” Lydia inculcates, handing over the car keys, “We’re not taking any risks these days, I don’t want you to try and play hero.”

Cora rolls her eyes but doesn’t say anything as Boyd takes the keys with a reassuring nod.

“Should we feel bad for making them leave?” Laura contemplates, taking a bite out of her third burger and watching Cora and Boyd stride across the lawn with her head tilted slightly to the left. 

Stiles follows her gaze just as Boyd wraps a loose arm around Cora’s waist. “I don’t think they mind very much, to be honest.”

Laura only smirks.

“We should probably not tell Derek about that,” he adds in a whisper, but of course Derek hears him – stupid werewolves – and rounds on him.

“Tell me about what?” he demands to know sharply and Laura chokes on her food with how much she’s laughing at Stiles’ facial expression.

“Boyd is going to use his stake-out duty to make out with our little sister,” she stage-whispers as soon as she’s calmed down enough to do so, and Stiles groans.

“He’s WHAT?”

“Oh, calm down, Der. At least Boyd’s a gentleman.”

“I- but- she can’t, they can’t… she’s sixteen!”

“Exactly,” Laura smirks again, “Sixteen and stuck in a small car with a hot boy for hours. What were you expecting?”

After that, Derek goes a little white in the face and refrains from saying anything else on the matter. 

Stiles laughs at him. “You’re such a marshmallow when it comes to Cora, it’s actually adorable.”

“You’ve called me that before,” Derek says irritably, “I don’t even like marshmallows!” 

He picks up his fork and proceeds to impale his last piece of chicken with such incredible grumpiness, Stiles bursts into laughter yet again.Laura giggles uncontrollably into her hand, stopping only when Malia comes running to drag her off for a game of tag.

“Thanks a lot,” Derek grumps, “Now she’ll keep calling me that.”

“What, Marshmallow?” Stiles asks innocently, ignoring Derek’s growl, “Nah, Laura won’t. Bet she’s got her own wide range of embarrassing nicknames for you… I might, though.”

The growling intensifies. “Don’t you dare, Stiles. I’m gonna rip your throat out. With my teeth.”

“Naw, Marshmallow, that’s been an empty threat for two years now.”

“ _Stiles_!”

 

With the sun gone, it doesn’t take long for darkness and a slight chill to descend upon their little gathering. Allison, Erica and Jackson flee into the warmth of the house, proceeding to watch a show on the living room TV. The sheriff, Laura and Derek, the only ones left at the dinner table, are deeply immersed in a conversation about gun wounds and the loss of limbs (it’s all very interesting and a little barbaric). Liam has long since fallen asleep on the sheriff’s lap. On the far end of the backyard, close to where the woods begin, Scott, Isaac and Malia are hunting for this year’s first fireflies, with Kira keeping an eye on them. From the distance, they seem to be dancing amidst a small number of tiny, glittering dots of light. Stiles and Lydia are squeezed tightly together on the old porch swing, sharing a blanket and watching over the lawn.

“We should do this more often,” Stiles breathes, simultaneously blowing a stray lock of Lydia’s hair out of his face.

“The barbecue thing or the let’s-sit-on-the-swing-in-the-cold-and-dark-and-do-absolutely-nothing thing?”

Stiles snorts. “The barbecue thing.”

“Yeah,” Lydia agrees, smile audible in her voice, “Especially this summer, before we leave for college.”

“Before _you_ leave for college.”

“Stiles-“

“We’re not talking about this, Lyds.”

“Fine,” Lydia harrumphs and stops talking altogether for a while.

“Do you think Laura is not telling us something? About that beta wolf we caught?” she starts back up a little later, voice barely a whisper, but Laura and Derek, only a few yards away, seem far too absorbed into their own conversation to listen in on theirs.

“Yeah,” Stiles sighs just as lowly, “Pretty sure she’s trying to hide something from us.”

“And Laura is usually really honest,” Lydia mutters worriedly, “Like, uncomfortably so, sometimes. Keeping stuff to himself is more Derek’s kind of thing, isn’t it? But if it’s _Laura_ as well-“

“-it must be bad,” Stiles finishes for her, eyes never leaving the Hale siblings.

Lydia rubs her temple. “Do you feel like this is somehow the calm before the storm?”

“I do,” Stiles murmurs, watching a small grey cloud creep up beyond the distant treetops, obscuring a patch of the starry sky. “I really do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> Comments and Kudos are always lovely :)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> I'd really appreciate a comment to let me know what you thought :)


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